Witherbane
by WitheredCarnation
Summary: When Celes is summoned by Cosmos to battle a poisonous blight consuming the world, she, her old friend Terra, and Squall Leonhart must travel the lands of Harmony and Discord to find its source. Rated for violence, slight Terra/Kefka. Potentially AU.
1. Introduction: Gleaming Silverdream

Introduction: Gleaming Silverdream

Celes would never forget that first flash of Silverdream.

The Witherbane surrounded her. It knotted beneath her feet like an ebony net, locked over her head like a cage, frothed in the ocean beyond the sandy ribbon of of the Dragon Isles. She leapt through the increasingly narrow spaces between the thrashing vines. Thorns scraped against her leather armor. Beside her, Kaeli ran, amber hair flowing over her pointed ears; there was no armor between her and the vines, and her green gown was torn and crusted with dried blood. Time was no longer measured by hours or minutes, but by the spread of the Witherbane. When Celes and Kaeli had started running, the plants were a black knot on the horizon. Too quickly they had become a hedge in the distance, then fingers clawing their backs. Now, it was on all sides.

A vine as thick as Celes herself, laced with serrated leaves, tightened across her path. She leapt it, drawing her runic blade long enough to slash the creeper she coudn't avoid.

That was when it happened. Kaeli reached into a sling on her back and removed a double-bladed battle axe. It glowed with the sheen of starlight from its blade to its handle, curved like something grown rather than forged. For a moment, in that dark abyss, Kaeli held the sun in her hands.

The vines were severed with a single blow. They fell to the ground, squishing like something rotten before dissipating into smoke.

"I see the teleport stone!" Kaeli yelled. "We're almost out!"

Celes had been watching the vines as she would a human enemy, but now that Kaeli had spoken, she risked looking, and saw it, too. It spiraled from the beach sand, glittering gold. Celes picked up speed. After fleeing across the whole island chain, it seemed like such an insignificant distance. Could safety truly be within reach?

A strangled cry made Celes skid to a halt, and turn back.

The Witherbane converged on Kaeli from all sides. Vines tightened around her feet like rope. At first, she cut through them with Silverdream, but then another caught her elbow, and a third whipped around her hand, making it impossible to use the axe effectively. Celes kicked up sand as she ran. Heavy vines knotted in her path; she hacked through the first, the second, the woven mass that followed; but the faster she cut, the more quickly they spawned.

"Kaeli!"

For a moment, their eyes locked; Celes, battling through the massing vines, and Kaeli, twisting as they wound around her, grew between the two women like a wall. Even as Celes told herself there had to be a way through, that look told a different story.

With as much strength as she could manage, arms bound as they were, Kaeli hurled Silverdream to Celes.

"Everything depends on this!"

Yet more vines emerged, lunging for the axe as it landed with its blade in the sand. Celes beat them to it. She wrapped her fingers around Silverdream's handle and pulled it free just in time. She turned to avoid them, drawing her sword. She didn't strike them, though. Though she couldn't see Kaeli any longer, there was still a small gap in the spreading Witherbane. Celes didn't have as much time as she'd like to aim. She pushed the sword through. Hopefully, Kaeli would be able to reach it.

She sprinted. The vines were at her heels, her shoulders. She could feel them. Faster, she pushed herself, until it felt like her legs would give out. _So close! _She reached for the golden light. Her fingers brushed the teleport stone.

Then the vines twisted around the teleport stone. They knitted around the coast, blocked the sky from the ground, sculpted an impenetrable seal of thistles around the Dragon Isles. Celes felt none of it.

When the Witherbane engulfed the Dragon Isles, Celes had escaped.

In her hands, Silverdream glowed.


	2. Chapter 1: Witherbane

Chapter One: The Witherbane

On a very personal level, Kefka Palazzo did not give a flying, stinking, chartreuse crap about other peoples' problems. Never in his life had he felt like easing another's pain, except maybe by disintegrating their nerve endings. He didn't need any leverage to manipulate chess pieces around Discord's giant living game board; in fact, sometimes he wanted nothing more than to overturn that board, rip it in half, and swallow the pieces. He didn't even find gossip particularly titillating.

So why was it, every time he heard his fellow Warriors of Chaos engaged in furtive whispering, he just _had_ to listen in?

Not that you could call any sound that came out of that giant oaf Gilgamesh's throat a "whisper." He sounded like an ox singing opera at his quietest, and the exclamation that stopped Kefka's stroll down the halls of Pandaemonium was not his quietest. Stealthily, Kefka crept closer to the sound, flattening himself against one of the pulsing pink crystal walls, pulling his cape around his shoulders in case some stray breeze got any ideas about carrying it into view.

"So?" Gilgamesh asked, red cloak trailing as he looked around. "What's so important you had to drag me all the way out here to tell me?"

"I'm dying."

Kefka almost fell out of his hiding place. He instantly recognized that guttural rasping, and a risked peek confirmed it: next to Gilgamesh sat the hulking armored form of Exdeath, the Moore Tree. He slumped on a fallen pillar and cradled one of his arms (branches?) in his lap. Exdeath, dying? Had Kefka heard that right?

"May I have Excalibur when you've passed?" Gilgamesh asked.

Kefka heard something that sounded suspiciously like a slap upside the head.

"You quasi-cognizant troglodyte! In no way did I imply I intended to persist in this state!"

Poor Exdeath. Kefka doubted Gilgamesh knew half the words he'd just used.

"Behold!" Exdeath said.

Kefka couldn't resist. He looked around the corner again.

With a shriek of metal, Exdeath pulled the gauntlet from his cradled arm and held out his fingers (twigs?). Bark peeled away in sloughing green strips, revealing twisted, shrunken, blackened wood beneath. _Gross_, Kefka thought, but that was his whole opinion on the subjcet. Well, that, and briefly wondering what Exdeath had been doing with that hand.

Gilgamesh paced around it. Even with his hood covering most of his face, Kefka could tell he was also repulsed. "What _is_ that?"

Exdeath attempted to flex the hand. His movements were stiff. "A rare malady. I'd only seen it once before, lifetimes ago, during my wanderings through the Rift."

"Hmm," Gilgamesh said, his voice suddenly, artificially stilted. "I didn't see it at all during _my_ wanderings through the Rift. My _involuntary_ wanderings through the Rift, foisted upon me by my heartless master after I dedicated my blade to his service..."

"You got your thieving fingers slapped, and the punishment was less severe than you deserved. Yet, even though I never thought to encounter this disease again..."

"The way I thought I was never going to see civilization again."

"...it can be nothing else. This is Witherbane!"

"Oh." There was a long pause. "What's that?"

Exdeath chuckled, although it sounded more like asthmatic hacking to Kefka. "I know little more than its name, and its inevitable outcome, if left untreated."

Gilgamesh thought. "So you're saying it can be treated."

_Figure that out all on your lonesome?_ Kefka thought. _Gilgamesh, I misjudged you_.

"Yes," Exdeath said, "By only one thing: the Geomancer's axe, Silverdream."

It amazed Kefka, given how enormously huge Gilgamesh was, and how weighted down with mysterious cloaking and mismatched weaponry, just how high he could jump when he wanted. "A magic axe? We're going hunting for a magic axe? Why didn't you _start _with that?"

"Because finding it ought to be impossible. By all logic, it should not be in this world, and yet..." Exdeath grew quiet. "Since the onset of the Witherbane, I have been having what I can only describe as foreign thoughts. Peculiar dreams. Disembodied... _sensations_. All of them tell me the axe is here, somewhere in the lands of Harmony. Somewhere deep in a forest, between a river and a vast white palace."

"I know where that is," Gilgamesh said.

_Huh?_

"Pardon?"

"Yeah, if you're sure it's on Harmony side. Castle Cornelia's gone, except for a single tower, and the only other palace over that way is Elfheim." Slyly, he added, "I know my way around fairly well, since that's where I landed when I finally escaped from the _Rift_."

Exdeath ignored the bait. He replaced the gauntlet over his festering arm instesad. "Then let us make haste. I wish to acquire that axe before this rot spreads any further."

Kefka listened to their footsteps recede and yawned. On one hand, there was no reason to believe Exdeath and Gilgamesh were going to do anything interesting on their little fetch-quest. On the other, there wasn't anything exciting to do here, either. He could either hope Chaos sent him to a fight (which he'd been doing even less than usual, lately), or pick one himself, and neither option was striking his fancy at just this moment. At least Exdeath's disfiguring fatal disease was something _different_.

It wouldn't hurt to follow them a little further.

* * *

><p>Celes ran until there was a stitch in her side, then she grit her teeth and ran further, until she was on the brink of collapse. The field was a blanket of deep snow, but she barely felt the cold, so great was her exertion. The snowy plains became snowy hills, and soon, those hills were dotted with gnarled trees. They were monstrous, black, purple, and green, sagging and twisting with Witherbane; so it had spread this far already. The poisoned trees multiplied into a poisoned forest, and that was as far as Celes could go. She found a hollow, uninfected trunk (uninfected because it was long dead, and petrified), threw her body over Silverdream, and fell into a dark sleep.<p>

Sun warmed her through the cracks of the old tree, and she woke. There were two thoughts on her mind.

The first was Kaeli. Was she still alive? Grimly, Celes thought it might be a mercy if she wasn't. The teleport stone had gone dark as soon as it brought Celes here, which meant the blight had the island chain completely cut off from the rest of the world. There was no hope of mounting a rescue until she could find a way through it. Who knew how long that would take? Celes _would_ go back for her. There was no question about that. But what state would she be in?

The second was that her sacrifice would be pointless if Celes couldn't find out how to use Silverdream to destroy the Witherbane. She had to protect the axe with her life.

_But how?_

Right now, she'd have to think on the move. She could feel the Witherbane in the trees, as if it were watching her. If she stayed in one place too long, her nebulous pursuers would surely catch up. Also, she'd better hide Silverdream as well as she could. Even that simple task presented a challenge. She had a small purse on her belt, but the axe wouldn't fit in _that_. She didn't even know if there was anything inside it. She flipped it opened. No money, just cloth.

Blue, spotted cloth. She pulled it out of her purse. A bandanna?

Something came over Celes as she gazed at it. It wasn't a memory, but a calm sense of well-being, as if the dearest person in the world had placed a hand on her shoulder and promised her everything would be all right.

Still, it wasn't enough to cover Silverdream. She folded the bandanna neatly and replaced it. She'd have to find something else. For the time being, she knotted her sash into a sling so she could carry the axe on her back. She practiced drawing it a few times to make sure it wouldn't snag. She wasn't enough of an optimist to think she woudn't have to use it.

She continued on her journey at a cautious pace.

After an hour or so, the spire of a great palace rose through the treetops. By that time, Celes was quite certain she was being followed. Not by noisy tendrils of infected plantlife, but by professionals. She listened carefully, trying to estimate how many. It sounded like four, maybe five, using the trees as cover, careful to only walk where the forest canopy had blocked the falling snow. Scouts from that castle, maybe? Then why hadn't they stopped her before she'd gotten this close?

If this was a trap, it was time to spring it.

Celes stopped, pivoted to face the scout directly behind her. "Show yourselves."

Five, it turned out. Five men emerged from the forest so silently they could have split from the trees. They were of varying heights, but all were lean, with long, muscular arms, pale hair, and skin tinged slightly green. _Elves_, Celes thought. _Dark elves_.

The one she'd addressed stepped into view last. His silver hair was long, knotted in a ponytail at his waist. His shift was of rich material, and thick with embroidery. Hands, manicured. Clean. He wore no weapons Celes could see. _That one certainly didn't come here expecting a fight. Maybe that's a good sign._

The closer the elves got, the more Celes doubted that. There was something wrong with them. It was nothing specific, just an impression that they were nothing more than carefully-shaded drawings, paradoxically moving through three dimensions.

"I mean you no harm," Celes said. "I'm only passing through the forest. If that clearing beyond the palace is the end of it, I should be there by midday. I apologize if I've stumbled into your territory."

It was the richly-dressed elf who answered her. "No apologies are necessary. A face as fair as yours is always welcome in Elfheim."

"I take it you're a man of some authority," Celes said.

He bowed. "King Astos, at your service. Yes, I suppose you could say I have some authority here."

"Then I appeal to it. Please, let me pass."

He laughed. It was a soft, melodious laugh, and it sent a chill down Celes's spine.

"Certainly. As soon as you've relinquished Silverdream to us."

_I knew it._ "Your majesty, it's not mine to relinquish."

Astos didn't appear ruffled. "Let me give you some advice. These lands were once stolen from me by my upstart brother. When I attempted to regain what was rightfully mine, I was slain in cold blood. How, then, do you suppose I stand before you now, my life and my kingdom restored?" He stretched his hand forward, palm up. "My master has done this. He's that powerful. Give me Silverdream, and he'll reward you as he has me. Refuse, and you might just find that pretty face of yours torn from your skull."

Celes drew Silverdream. It was light in her hand, cool, and the elves filnched at the gleam of its blades.

It was only for a moment. Celes had figured they weren't gentlemen, and she was right. All four attacked her at once, lightning fast.

Around Celes was cold. Frosting the trees, lacing the underbrush, forming in the air with her breath, and always, somewhere deep in her very core. She reached for it, gathered it, surrounded herself with it. Daggers of pure ice encircled her, and she hurled them away. The four elves were thrown back. Two were stabbed. A third was at least scraped.

Celes leapt on the one who'd been fast enough to evade her completely. She'd have to take him down first.

Her timing was off. Silverdream, for all its enchantments, was slower and heavier than her runic blade, and the elf-warrior had time to move. Celes predicted that, and as he dodged, she followed the strike of the axe with a roundhouse kick, knocking him cold to the forest floor.

There was an outside source of magic at work. Astos! Lightning crackled between his hands. She threw Silverdream aloft.

The energy of his spell burst around her and was drawn, swirling, to the axe. She wasn't able to absorb all of it; this, too, was something her sword did better, and Celes took a slight jolt. The rest of the lightning spell remained trapped within her. She turned; two of the elves were upon her again. She struck wide with Silverdream, catching them both. They fell.

The last of Astos's men reached for her, snatching her barrette and a handful of hair. She pulled away, leaving both in his clenched fist, then released Astos's spell at him. He staggered, then went down face first.

All four lay, incapacitated at best. Only Astos was still on his feet, and from the look on his face, he was slowly realizing the implications of that. Celes pointed Silverdream at him.

"Now let me give you some advice," She said. "The next time you confront a Magitek Knight of the Empire, bring more men."

Magic or no, Celes was at an advantage, and Astos seemed to realize that. Before she could mount another attack, he turned and fled into the forest.

She watched him retreat with boiling blood. She was disgusted with him, and at the same time, angry at herself. _Marvelous work, Celes. You've barely been here two days, and you've already attacked a king. Let's hope you haven't started a war._

* * *

><p>It didn't take long for Celes to disappoint herself a second time.<p>

It started when, after she turned away from the palace to avoid any patrols Astos might send after her, she heard splashing water. In this freeze? Determined not to be put on the defensive again, she crept towards the sound of breaking ice. There was sparse cover. The trees were thinning.

There _was_ a man kneeling over the frozen river. He'd cracked the ice, and was filling a tin mug with water. She couldn't see his face, only short, unruly dark hair and the fur lining of a heavy coat.

_Is that...?_

Celes stepped forward, a name in her head and on her lips.

It vanished when he turned. His scarred, severe features were unfamiliar.

_It's not him._

_...who?_

He stood slowly, never taking his eyes off her. She glanced at his ears. Not an elf, but that didn't mean he wasn't in their army. She thought it looked like he wore some kind of uniform beneath that coat. He was armed, too, although with the oddest sword Celes had ever seen; it was fitted with some kind of Magitek contraption that looked like the revolving cannons she'd seen on the heavy arms, only she saw nowhere to discharge ammunition. He didn't attempt to pull it.

"I've never seen you before," He said.

_I was just thinking the same thing._

He looked like he wanted to say more, so she waited. Eventually, he asked, "Cosmos or Chaos?"

_Armed, uniformed, all the way out here... those must be armies, and he belongs to one of them_. "Neither."

"That won't last long. You should come with me to Castle Cornelia."

"Why is that?"

He crossed his arms. "Because you look like someone who wants a choice, and if Soldiers of Chaos catch you, you don't get one. They've already impressed some of our best men."

"And of course, _you _don't do that sort of thing." Celes could hear cynicism creeping into her voice. The last thing she needed to do was start another brawl, but she couldn't help it. _'We' never do. It's always 'them.'_

Again, he looked like he wanted to respond, but after standing cold as a statue, he shrugged. "Whatever. Do what you want."

The warrior with the strange weapon began to follow the frozen river. Celes wanted to follow him. At the same time, she didn't. She needed help. She didn't know where she was, or even _who_ she was, not completely. Yet she couldn't trust him blindly, either. So he had more finesse than Astos and his men. That didn't mean he wasn't lying.

Silverdream was warm against Celes's back. Her hand fell on her purse. Her fingers tightened around the bandanna inside.

"Wait," She said, catching up to him with quick, easy strides.

He didn't speak as she fell into step beside him. For the length of the river, she didn't try to engage in conversation. They left the hills for a rocky plain, turned sharply north. Then, when the sun was directly overhead, Celes asked:

"How far is this Castle Cornelia?"

"In about a half an hour, we'll be in the ruins of Pravoka. We'll strike out west from there. We should make the castle before nightfall."

"You should know I'm being pursued."

"No one's stupid enough to chase you into Cosmos's throne room with a full guard. We've been keeping our people inside since the blight came." He paused. "Squall Leonhart."

"General Celes Chere, Magitek Knight. I don't remember much more than that."

"None of us do, at first."

"I thought you were someone else, though."

"You remind me of somebody, too."

"But we don't know each other."

"No. The person you remind me of is a man."

Celes grinned. It was refreshing. She hadn't had much to smile about lately.

* * *

><p>Celes had run through the decaying court of Bahamut. She had run from the Dragon Isles to the elven lands. Everywhere she'd been, she'd seen the tentacles of Witherbane in the plantlife, from the mightiest pine to the scrawniest brush. She was encouraged, then, to find Squall had led her to a place it had far less of a stranglehold.<p>

Oh, there were signs of its creep. There were veins like dried sap dripping from the trees, blades of dead grass among the green. The eggshell shimmer of the spire rising over the ruins, the castle to which Squall promised to take her, was splotched with dusty marks, like ashy fingerprints from a giant hand. Here, at least, she could still see life struggling beneath the rot.

When Squall opened the tower's ivory doors to an interplay of light, reflected from a smooth fountain and scattered overhead, she even let herself hope for a moment.

Squall led her to an open court. Clouds rolled overhead. Beneath them was a gleaming throne.

Celes blinked. Occupying the throne was a golden-haired woman dressed in filmy lace. At her side was a young knight in pale armor. Both of them watched her approach with peircing crystal eyes. Suddenly, she was somewhere else. She was a child, at a festival in Vector, laughing as strong, rough, wrinkled hands pinned a jeweled clip into her hair, then swept her into the air. The hands of a man in an oil-stained yellow overcoat, leading her through the booths and displays, calling at her not to run so far ahead, or she'd get lost. _Grandpa_, she thought. _How could I ever have forgotten grandpa? And why do this elegant woman and her companion remind me so strongly of him?_

Her hand flew to her torn hair.

"My barrette! Grandpa gave me that, and now I've lost it!"

It only took Celes a few seconds to regain herself and realize she'd just said something bordering on idiotic, especially given her situation.

"I apologize. I don't know what came over me. Are you Cosmos?"

The woman didn't answer. She reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out what Celes presumed had once been a rose. Now it was a brown stem, overgrown with mottled fuzz, a few curled red petals clinging to the place the bloom used to be.

It was the pale knight at her side that spoke. "You're here about this, aren't you?"

Celes nodded.

"Tell us."

"Two days ago, I woke on a island. I wasn't alone. There was another woman with me, an elven geomancer named Kaeli. Neither of us could remember how we'd gotten there, or anything other than our names, but it wasn't long before we noticed the cenotaph... and the black vines growing out of it. Kaeli was horrified. She knew what it was. She called it the Witherbane, and she said it would consume this world if we couldn't stop it." Celes unlatched Silverdream and held it out to them with both hands. "She told me this axe is the only thing capable of killing it. But she was taken, and I don't know anything more about the blight, or even what to do with the axe."

The pale knight and the woman looked at each other again. Were they communicating somehow? Eventually, the knight lifted Silverdream from Celes's hands and tested it in the air. "There is someone close to this place who might be able to answer the first of your questions. Though we hesitate to send you to him. He is... something of an opportunist. Whether you're enemy or ally depends on what you can do for him."

Celes snorted. "Won't be the first time I've dealt with that sort. Who is he?"

"The necromancer, Lich. He haunts the scraps of a ghost town once known as Melmond. You'll find it to the west, at the edge of a toxic swampland."

Hope surged. Finally, Celes at least had an attainable goal. A direction.

Squall, who had been as silent as Cosmos for most of the conversation, stepped forward. "She'll need someone to show her the way. Back her up if there's trouble."

The knight returned Silverdream to Celes. "And you're volunteering?"

"I did that for a living once," Squall said.

"Then you have our leave. Celes, you are free to say here as long as you need to prepare, and you're welcome to return any time you need rest or assistance, regardless of your alignment."

"You have my gratitude," Celes said, and meant it.

Then she heard a voice that shattered barriers in her mind like glass.

It was preceded by soft, light footsteps, the kind more often associated with dancing than running. Words followed shortly: "I found the last of the missing moogles and brought them here. The blight is so thick in places, I can't even levitate through it. I didn't see any Soldiers of Chaos, or even any Manikins. What do you suppose-"

The exhausted runner, a delicate woman, tossed the long mop of curly hair out of her face and looked at Celes with large eyes. Her mouth opened, whatever else she was going to say forgotten.

"Celes?"

Ignoring Celes's scuffed, muddied armor, the woman threw her arms around her, laughing even as tears sprang to her eyes.

"Celes, it _is_ you!"

_I know you!_ This was no mere resemblance, no shadowy memory. But what was the name that went with that face? So much was flooding back to her. In the Empire, there had been three knights of renown. One had been Celes herself, "Ice Queen" and master of the runic blade. Now, she could see another, cloaked in flames like a phoenix: the "Imperial Witch," a half-human sorceress of exemplary power and skill. Better known as...

"Terra Branford?" Before Celes's brain gave her arms permission, she hugged back. "What are you doing here?"

* * *

><p>"If I were hearing this from anyone but you, I wouldn't believe it."<p>

Now free of her armor and dressed in fresh clothes, Celes sat on the edge of a divan, looking into the fountain that had greeted her entrance into the tower. A square plate sat on her lap, arranged with juicy cuts of meat, garnished with whole spices. Beside it, colorful vegetables were layered. Celes bit into it; delicious. It took tasting Terra's cooking again to remember how much she'd missed it. She took another bite. Then she remembered Kaeli, and she didn't feel like eating anymore.

"I know how it sounds, but it's true. There really is a Dimensional Rift, and this is a place where its best warriors are summoned to battle." Terra sat beside Celes, legs crossed neatly, hands in her lap. She'd sat that way throughout the whole conversation, and if she'd moved at all, it was so slightly Celes's trained eyes couldn't detect it. It was like she'd been posed. Moogles floated lazily on the other side of the fountain, twitching their kitten-ears as they fluttered their wings. It could have been a painting.

Celes sat the plate aside. "They used to tell stories about a place like that at the coliseum. You and I used to fight there, didn't we?"

"Only when we needed the gil."

_That's right. You never enjoyed it like I did._

Terra said, "I've been here ages. I'm not even sure how long. But I've never seen anything like this... Witherbane. It spread like wildfire in a matter of days. Only Cosmos keeps it from swallowing the tower." She frowned. "Celes? Can it really be stopped?"

_I don't know_, Celes thought reflexively. But that wasn't something she wanted to say to Terra. "That's the plan."

"Then I want to be a part of it. Since this poison has begun to spread, it's felt like... like the seams of the world are being plucked free. If I can help you stop it, then that's what I ought to be doing."

"It'll be dangerous. You might not come back."

Terra moved, finally; Celes watched as, with mechanical practice, she reached to her ponytail, yanked a curl, and returned her hand to her lap. "But the tower won't be safe forever, will it?"

"From what I've seen, it'll be the last place to fall."

A slight note of fear crept into Terra's voice. "Did you want me to stay here?"

Celes shook her head. "I'm only worried. The truth is, Squall and I could use your magic."

Terra gazed into the water. Though her body language was still blank, there were traces of sadness in her half-closed eyes.

"There's something else bothering you, isn't there?" Celes asked. "You can tell me."

"Celes, it isn't just us. Who were summoned here, I mean. He's here, too." She swallowed. "The _other_ one."

Vague as Terra was being, Celes knew instantly what "other one" she meant. The visions returned; horrible visions this time, of people laying in heaps next to wells flowing with poisoned water, screams from the windows of burning, collapsing homes, and laughter... exuberant, maniacal laughter.

Celes made some kind of sound. It wasn't a laugh, but a growl, and not the kind one normally heard from a human throat. "He's here, is he? In how many pieces?"

Terra stared. Celes forgot how difficult it was for her to understand jokes. "Um, just the one."

Celes felt the hilt of Silverdream. Considering the sacred trust Kaeli had left her, it was terrible to think about using the axe for personal reasons, but still. "He'd better hope I'm never in the position to fix that."

* * *

><p>Kefka was two seconds away from skipping off and leaving Exdeath and Gilgamesh to their own devices. It was cold, it was snowing, that black gunk on the trees was getting all over his cape, and the world was just so dull and stable Harmony-side. There wasn't so much as a curling smoke-wisp of a forming Gateway. Oh, sure, there <em>were <em>a couple of dead guys piled in a forest clearing, but to Kefka, that just meant the exciting stuff was already over.

Then Gilgamesh pried something shiny from one of the corpses' hands.

"So the fight wasn't as one-sided as it initially looked," Exdeath said as Gilgamesh held up this treasure. "At least one of them got a hit on whoever did this."

"What pretty hair," Gilgamesh said. "So long and silky."

Exdeath knelt by another of the cold meat elves. "Traces of elemental magic. Of quite an impressive potency, I might add." He stood, then took a swipe at Gilgamesh's hand. "Throw that away."

"But I don't wanna!"

"You have no use for it!"

"I want to keep it anyway!"

Exdeath grabbed at Gilgamesh again, and caught him this time. The shimmery thing in his hand flew through the air, skidded through the snow, and stopped close to Kefka's hiding spot.

Where he got a very good look at it.

_You've got to be kidding me!_

He scooped up the barrette, along with a handful of snow, and that's how Gilgamesh found him. The cloaked giant was stunned to see his fellow Soldier of Chaos skulking around the foliage, holding his treat, but Kefka ignored that. "I don't think it's your color, big guy."

Exdeath, when he appeared (literally) at Gilgamesh's side, was less polite. "Spying again, Kefka? And just how much have you discovered?"

"Enough to know you'd just loooove to have the name of this bauble's owner. What if I said I could give you that?"

Exdeath folded his arms over the hilt of his sword. The rotting one twitched. "I'd assume you were lying."

"Safe assumption, normally. But not this time." Kefka waved the barrette at Exdeath, and Gilgamesh took the opportunity to snatch it back. "They used to sell these things at an annual festival we held in Vector. This particular clip, and those wispy little strands stuck on it, and those dead bodies on the ground around it, all belong to one Celes Chere."

"I knew it!" Gilgamesh said, hugging the barrette. "I knew it had to be a pretty lady!"

Exdeath pushed Gilgamesh out of the way. Actually, it looked more like he thought about backhanding him, and decided to abort halfway through the motion. "And why, pray tell, are you being so generous with this information?"

"Because us Chaos warriors are a team, and sharing information is what teams do! Gimme a G! I! L! Whatever-the-hell-else comes next!"

"It's okay," Gilgamesh said, "I can't spell your name, either."

While Exdeath continued to protest, Kefka walked a circle around the prone elves, unusually slow and observant.

"Dead. Dead. Dead on toast. D- no, wait, this one's breathing."

Kefka knelt by the barely-warm elf and, with very little care, yanked his head from the ground.

"What's say you get in on the team spirit?"

The elf opened his mouth, but all that came out was a ragged scream. Kefka nodded as if this were exactly what he wanted to hear, then threw him back in the snow.

"After she thrashed these guys, and their commander wet himself and ran away screaming, she lit out from the castle... hmm... that way, to the river. It shouldn't be too hard to pick up her trail. No, please, don't you both thank me at once! I'm blushing!"

Exdeath narrowed his eyes (about all Kefka could see of his face beneath his visor). "I'd be a fool to trust you, Kefka, yet I must admit you have abilities I find useful. Very well. If you insist upon imposing on us, I won't chase you away. Not without cause, at any rate. Gilgamesh, come!"

Gilgamesh did obey, eventually. He waited until he thought Exdeath and Kefka were out of sight, then he slipped the wounded elven warrior a potion and a fire scroll. As someone who fancied himself a hero, he thought nobody- not even an enemy- deserved that kind of miserable death.

_And now I'm puking_, Kefka thought.


	3. Visions of Foresta: Captain

Visions of Foresta: Captain

The weathered sea captain was far from his ship. Led through the trees by the hand, he stared mutely at the beauty of the elven village; at least, as much as he could see through the blood dripping from his forehead. The trees served as homes, but the hadn't been built or carved from the wood. They'd been grown in the shapes desired, complete with doors; some local form of geomancy. Fungus served as stairs. Shops consisted of carts filled with vegetables and tables of clothes and jewelry. By the standards of the ports and bazaars he was used to, Foresta was tiny, but he didn't think he'd ever seen a place more beautiful.

He was led there by a little redheaded elven girl. Was it Kaeli? The child carried a battle axe, but it was plain wood and steel. Also, her expression was morose, guarded, even a little churlish. There was nothing childlike about it.

The Captain seemed put off by that. He tried to strike up a conversation. "That was pretty amazing work back there, kiddo! I didn't know there were monsters like that in the woods around here!"

"There aren't," Kaeli said. "That one's only just moved in."

"If you hadn't come along, it might've had a Captain Mac throw rug for its new home!"

"It's not staying. Master Durante and I are going to chase it away."

"Is that your father?"

Kaeli winced as if he'd slapped her right across the face. Her voice, though, was calm. "No. He's the town's Elder Geomancer."

They stopped at a round door in a fat, mushroom-shaped tree. Kaeli opened it.

"Mother? Are you home? I've got a visitor. He needs a healer."

The woman who emerged from the back of the house was the grown Kaeli's twin, but for her much darker hair, Celes thought. She carried a silver tray, set with a teapot and two cups. When she saw the bloodied captain, she almost dropped it.

"Take him in the back, quickly!" She commanded.

Later, Kaeli sat in the garden, and the elven woman tended the Captain. She soothed the injuries with spells and herbs, bound the cuts, served him hearty stew. Now that the sun was overhead, she carried that silver tray again, set with its teapot and cups. This time they were full of piping tea. Through all of this, she'd barely spoken to him twice, and that only to ask how he was feeling. That's what she asked when she passed him a teacup.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better than ever!" He lifted his teacup. "It'll take more than a boogeyman to do me in. Thank you for the tea, by the way. And all of this." He motioned.

She opened her mouth as if she were going to say something, but couldn't get anything out, not even 'you're welcome.' She averted her eyes.

Was she going to ask what he was doing here? "My ship crashed at the shores near Focus Tower." At her worried expression, he hastily added, "The crew is fine. The damage is minor. I was foraging for wood to repair it with when I was attacked. I got lost in the fight, but that little girl of yours came to my rescue. What a trooper!"

"Yes," She said, blinking rapidly.

"Did I say something unkind? I didn't mean to."

"Kaeli," The elven woman said. "She used to be so happy. But since her father... passed on..."

The Captain didn't press. He drank his tea. "I'll have to return to my crew and let them know I'm all right."

"Let me go with you to the market. Tell me what you need for your ship. I'll make sure you get it." Though her eyes remained downcast, color crept into the elf woman's cheeks.

Before they left, he stopped in the garden to thank Kaeli again. He'd planned a whole silly speech he'd hoped would cheer her up, but he lost it the second the girl's flinty eyes landed on him.

"She lied, you know," Kaeli said. "My father didn't die. He just _left_."


	4. Chapter 2: A Realm of Revenants

Chapter Two: A Realm of Revenants

Later, Celes would think she should have known something was amiss in Melmond the second she stepped beneath the broken-down arch that marked its borders. The problem was, so much was amiss in Melmond as part of the town's general character, it would have been impossible for an outsider like her to recognize any one thing as more unusual than it ought to be. They entered through the east gate. It was the only one that hadn't been swallowed by foul marshes. To their right was a three-pronged lake, curling around the wall like a pitchfork. To their left was a cemetery; or at least, tombstones. The graves themselves had long been dug up, and now sat vacant. Celes crossed the bridge first, then Squall, his gunblade slung over his shoulder. Behind him was Terra, her hands folded across her chest as she looked around. From their expressions, they were enjoying the rank stench of the place (a combination of stale bread, rotting meat, and stagnant water) as much as Celes was. There was something else, too, beneath it. A chill that went right through Celes's skin and burrowed into her stomach.

Terra put it into words. "This place is so miserable. It's like the whole town is curled up in a ball, crying."

"You'll find misery has its charms, miss. Much like you."

From the tombs, he emerged, hidden in a cape of shadows. Celes couldn't recall having ever seen anyone so gaunt or bloodless; his flesh wrapped around his bones so tightly, there couldn't have been anything between them. The only thing visible beneath his lank red hair was his mouth, but what a mouth that was, lined with canine fangs.

"Have you come to see the necromancer? He's been expecting Cosmos to consult him. You'll find him most receptive. Yes, most receptive."

Squall frowned. "I take it you're the vampire, Hein?"

"And I apologize for keeping you waiting. My hospitality isn't lacking- you might say an open grave is the most welcoming place in the world!- but I do have some difficulties with the sunlight."

Celes had to stifle a laugh when she heard Squall mumble, "Oh, give me a break." Hein didn't hear him. He was too busy lifting Terra's hand to his lips.

"I would consider it a privilege to be your escort, my dear."

Terra's face didn't change in the slightest. "Thank you."

Celes smiled again. _Good old Terra_. "Where are you 'escorting' us to?"

Hein gestured. "That mansion you see in the distance. It's the tallest building in town. It was once a tavern and an inn for travelers, but no one here has need of such things."

Cobblestones crunched under their feet as they walked. Now, along with the smell, there was a sound. At first, Celes thought it was the wind, but there was an unbroken regularity to it; and besides, the surface of the water was still. Celes tried to tune it out so she could think.

"I've heard Lich is the kind of help that comes with a price tag," she said. "Any idea what it'll be?"

Hein motioned as if he were trying to brush his hair out of his face, but Celes still couldn't see anything but mouth. "I can't answer for him, you see, but I'm sure he'll be eager to tell you everything. Yes, most eager."

The noise became louder, and finally Celes recognized it: voices. She looked for the source, and soon found it: a building, sagging under years of weathering, but in no immediate danger of falling. Around it were shuffling crowds. The people were wilted like Hein, faces skeletal, eyes sunken, clothes rags. The mob was too large for Celes to estimate their numbers from such a short glimpse, but each one of them was intent on only one thing: getting inside that building. They clawed ineffectually at doors, beat feebly at windows, dug at the ground. The whole time, they lifted their voices in a long, unbroken wail.

Squall pointed with his gunblade. "Who're they?"

Hein said, "Those are the shells of the plague-dead. They yearn for the succor that clinic once provided, but alas, no one remains inside, and the door is sealed. Pay them no mind."

The clinic receded during their silent walk. Soon, Celes couldn't hear the moaning any longer. Then another place came into view, and Celes needed no explanation to guess its function. The anvil, forge, furnace, and billows among the ruins marked it as an armory. Behind it was another knot of graves. How many cemeteries did one place need?

...and why was she detecting traces of dormant magic in the headstones?

They didn't see so much as a blade of grass or a branch of a tree during the journey. "There's not much here for the Witherbane to attack," she said to Squall.

Meanwhile, Squall had found something else to occupy his attention. Near the armory was a well, and around it pranced three figures, grimy, pale, and very small. They were tossing something between them, something like a ball, only more of an oval shape and trailing feathery black. Hein noticed him watching.

"Even our children have their toys," He said. "Pay them no mind."

Squall and Hein were about to return when Terra cried out.

"Stop! Don't take another step!"

That was Celes's first real alarm. When he heard that, Hein froze in place, his expression one of panic. However, all Terra did was scoop something from the street before him. She held it up. It was a large, hairy tarantula, crawling merrily across her palm.

"You almost stepped on him," she said, placing the tarantula down near a broken bucket.

The relief on Hein's face was obvious, even though his voice was rough. "Well! This marks the first time I've been jealous of a spider!"

_What did you _think_ Terra noticed, Hein?_

At last, the old tavern was in sight. It rose to impressive heights in the starlit sky, even in its decaying state. A facade of windows faced the street, most dark, some dancing with eerie blue ghost light. Next to the building was the oddest construction Celes had ever seen. It had the silhouette of a mast and crow's nest, like a pirate ship, but was constructed more of metal than wood, and dangling with chains and shackles. At the very top were a series of split boards, carved with holes for arms and necks. _A_ _pillory_, Celes thought. And, on second glance, it looked like someone was inside it.

Although she could have been forgiven for not seeing them right away. They weren't a whole someone. In fact, they were just shadows of wiggling fingers, barely visible in the shackles.

Hein was at her side in an instant. "That is entirely self-constructed. The man inside it died weighted down by guilt, and suffers it beyond life. Pay him no mind, for we are here."

Tombstones, more tombstones...

Their dormant power surged to life. Dark fire, flare magic, burned to life.

Celes drew Silverdream. "So Lich has already picked his side."

"Indeed," said Hein, "And he picked the wrong one. It was a bad time for the old man to grow a conscience, and as a consequence, he rots in the marshes beyond, where you will soon join him. As I said, he will be most receptive... more receptive than he was of my new master."

Squall readied his gunblade, Terra her gladius.

From the ground grew fingers. Soon they were arms. The tips of zombies' heads began to rise, and that was the last Celes could see. The dark flames burst from the tombstones, and Celes had to turn all her strength, all her concentration, to drawing it into Silverdream. She felt its touch like a rain of slugs; though it burned, her skin broke into goosebumps.

Terra looked to Hein, then his hoards of the undead, now forming a circle around them. "Who's casting it?"

Through grit teeth, Celes said, "It's a barrier spell. It's not being cast. It was anchored to the tombstones, and now it's being released."

Squall thought. "Like Junctioning, but to a place instead of a person or weapon."

"Which means it won't stop unless we can disrupt them." Terra flexed her fingers. "Which may be impossible. If Hein set this up, he really knew what he was doing. The zombies have us cut off from the cemetery. Celes's runic technique is the only thing keeping us alive, but at the same time, it means we can't use magic, either. Without magic to keep the dead at bay, we can't get past them... and they'll certainly overwhelm us."

"Terra," Squall said, "I've got a tall order for you. I know what to do, but you're going to have to cover me _and_ Celes. Think you can handle that?"

Squall leapt away before Terra could answer. _What was he planning?_ Celes didn't have time to speculate. The world became an endless assault of sounds. The screaming of the dead. The squishy collapsing of their flesh as Terra's blade met soft, rotted meat; first, cutting down two revenants who reached for Celes, one after the other. Beyond her, Squall ran. _Lightning fast_, Celes thought. The gunblade flashed, and a group of revenants flew. Where was he going?

The pillory?

Using the shackles as holds, he climbed past its metal foundation. Celes had to look away. Revenants flanked her. Terra's blade snicked through them like they were gelatin, but one was still coming in spite of being little more than a pair of legs. She kicked it away, right onto Terra's sword.

There was a crack, then a rumble, like a lightning bolt followed by thunder. The pillory creaked, the wooden section of its pole severed. It tilted. Squall! Where was he?

He leapt from the falling pillory, a black shadow against the red sky, just as it fell on the tombstones. Their magic failed as the stone crumbled. Shackled hands crawled free.

Squall pointed with the gunblade. "This way, you two!"

There was a hoard of zombies between them and 'this way,' but Celes had gathered so much magic, she needed only release it to turn half of them to ash. Beside her, Terra hurled bolts of pure light, finishing the other half. They joined Squall, then kept running.

"That's the marsh!" Hein screamed after them. "You'll never survive it!"

Celes had known a lot of sleazy characters in her day, but she didn't have to spend a lot of time with Hein to know he was among the sleaziest. Between the two of them, she'd rather trust Squall. Tossing the crackling remnants of the barrier flare at Hein as a goodbye gesture, she plunged into the marsh.

* * *

><p>"What's that ahead?" Terra asked, and Celes could hear the uncertainty in her voice. She could sympathize with it, too. She remembered, now, the stories of the old Returners back home. Stories of getting lost in the Phantom Forest, led by mischievous balls of fairy light.<p>

Now, as they stood at the innermost part of the swamp, knee-deep in sludge and unable to go further, a light like that bobbed into view, yellow in the murky gloom.

Celes didn't know if she should be relieved when it turned out to be a lantern hanging from the stern of a gondola. It was amazing the battered thing, patched and wrinkled like a dead seed pod, could even stay afloat. Especially, she thought, since its sole occupant, a ferryman, was draped in heavy capes and old plate armor. Beneath his helmet, wraith-eyes glowed in a face that was not skeletal, but actual naked bone.

"Is he one of them?" Squall asked, nodding back in the village's direction.

"He's undead, that's for certain," Celes responded. "They might have sent him to search for us."

The boat stopped at the shore.

"You find yourselves in a spot of trouble, yes?" Asked the ferryman. "Would you like a ride?"

"To where?" Celes asked, just as Squall exclaimed, "That thing looks about as seaworthy as an old sponge!"

"Appearances can be deceiving, as they say. To answer your question, my dear, I will take you across the marsh. Hein won't be able to follow you. He has difficulties with standing water, you see."

"So you do know Hein," Celes said.

"Indeed. I am his father. I am Lich."

"You'll pardon my skepticism, sir. He said you were dead."

The ferryman placed one hand over his cavernous chest, letting them all see the rot and protruding bone. "And so I have been for some time. One who shares my unlife, as Hein, cannot destroy me without undoing himself; though I'm sure he'd rather you thought otherwise. No, he meant only to bind me here. You see even that is beyond his abilities."

He motioned again for them to board his gondola, and though Celes believed him now, she was even more reluctant.

Terra looked between the tiny boat and the massive Lich. "Will we fit?"

It turned out they did fit. Lich pushed the creaking boat away from the muddy shore, under gnarled trees with low-hanging branches. Squall had to duck. Celes got a good enough look to see the bloated, peeling bark, veined with corrosion. "Witherbane."

"So that's what it's called. Witherbane," Lich said.

_He didn't even know that?_ "We'd hoped you would know what it is."

"My apologies. I can only definitively tell you what it is not. As an Archfiend, I work my magic by corrupting the basic element of Earth, emphasizing its destructive qualities while attempting to subdue or eliminate its more beneficial attributes. What you call Witherbane is no such corruption. What it touches, it changes completely, from the inside out. It is no longer an element. It isn't even part of the Void."

"In other words," Squall said, "There probably isn't anyone who could tell us what's causing it."

Celes wrapped her arms around her shoulders. "The way Astos and Hein were going on about their 'master,' I'm beginning to think it's a some_one_, not a some_thing_." _Kaeli_. Celes could remember being chained while a fist connected repeatedly with her stomach. The memory brought no pain, only contempt for the fist's owner; she'd been trained to withstand worse than that. But Kaeli? Was she, even now, the prisoner of someone like him? _We have to remove the Witherbane, if only to get back to her!_

Lich guided the boat away from a slithering root. "I can speculate. If you could create a state of being that deliberately defies comprehension, willfully changes under scrutiny, and has at its core pure malice against anything that is not itself, that is what I would say Witherbane is made of. But who or what is responsible for it?"

"You were with Hein all that time," Celes said. "Though I know you weren't suspicious, are you sure he didn't say or do anything strange before his betrayal?" _Stranger than usual, anyway?_

Lich considered her question. "Come to think of it, Hein has been sneaking away. I know this because he passes our shrine on his journey, the Chaos Shrine, to the northeast. The only thing beyond it is Matoya's Cave. And, as its eponymous mistress has been dead for lifetimes- _really _dead- anything could have taken up residence in her absence. Perhaps the answers you seek are there."

A heavy thud indicated they had hit solid land once more.

"Here we are."

Celes stepped outside the boat. She tested the ground. Nothing wrong here. She disembarked. "That's it? You're just going to let us go?"

Terra hopped out next.

Lich said, "You may not think so, given the tales you've heard of me, but the loss of my children... it grieves me. I know, feel deep within, this thing they would have destroyed me to possess is going to turn and devour them. No, if I ask for payment, it is only this: kill the interloping cancer that has taken them from me."

Terra clutched her chest. "We will!"

Squall left the boat, and the three of them turned to leave.

"Although," Lich said.

_I knew that deal was too good to be true_, Celes thought. "Yes?"

Lich clutched his oar for support. "Should you be victorious in this battle, Celes Chere, I would like you to return to my Melmond."

_How did you know my name?_ "And?"

Celes had, after the war ended and the Returners disbanded, done the odd dirty job. Nothing illegal; just an armed escort here, a ruin raid there, infiltration, spying. Which would this creature ask of her?

"And sing us something. We hear you have quite the voice."

As Squall looked at Celes with surprise, she could feel herself blushing.

* * *

><p>As the wooden doorway of the Inn splintered into pins and matchsticks, as the white light of Exdeath's magic pulsed from his hands, as a hoarse "Death approaches!" rang out over the screams, Kefka laughed. And laughed.<p>

_This is more like it!_

Melmond was a playground of a village. He leapt from headstone to headstone, never touching the ground. He pushed Gilgamesh into the fetid swamp. He pulled off a shambling zombie's head and watched it stumble around with delight. Then, when he saw a group of bloated, grub-like children tossing a misshapen ball between them, he intercepted it mid-air.

Kefka examined the thing in his hands. It was an old severed head, its lips shrunken over its teeth, its nose almost gone, its skin like rawhide, its black hair hanging by threads.

"Cool," He said, bouncing it off both knees before spiking it back to the fiend-children. They greeted his display with applause.

_I'm going to have to retire here! If I don't burn it down first, anyway._ Who needed purpose in a place like Melmond?

Boring stodgy old Exdeath, apparently. It wasn't even a whole hour before he (and the mud-splattered Gilgamesh) dragged some fanged blood-headed ghoul to Kefka. Kefka looked at the vampire, then Exdeath.

"Leave it to you to find something that sucks. Ha! See what I did there?"

Exdeath responded boringly. "Kefka, I'd like you to meet Hein. The vampire has confirmed that the bearers of the axe brought it here..."

"Bearers, plural? I thought it was only Celes."

Gilgamesh pointed to a smashed pillory. "No one person could make this much of a mess!" When Kefka glared, he hastily amended, "No one person except you, I mean."

Exdeath interrupted. "There are three of them, he says, but he's grown tight-lipped since telling me that. I was hoping you could persuade him to give me names and a destination."

Hein looked up at Kefka, absorbing his pink scarves, feathered headdress, and colorful face paint. Feeling innocent, Kefka tucked his hands behind his back.

"A clown?" Hein spat. "What's he going to do? Torment me with bad jokes until I crack?"

Kefka smiled sweetly. "I'm going to ask you so politely, you'll be instantly won over by my charm!" Then his serious face cracked and he broke into a fit of giggles. "Uwee hee hee! Just kidding! So, tell me, Fangs. With all that vampire mind control of yours... have you ever been on the receiving end of a brain-spanking before?"

Hein's disdain morphed into comprehension... then horror. "_Mindflayer!"_

Kefka cracked his knuckles. "Eh, there are worse things I could be flaying in public."

Before Kefka could start work, he noticed Gilgamesh lingering at his shoulder. He and Exdeath exchanged a significant look. No way would they be able to pry anything from Hein with Sir Pureheart in the backseat.

"Gilgamesh," Exdeath said, "While we're speaking, I'll need you to guard the town's perimeter. Start by that college. See we aren't surprised."

Gilgamesh obeyed, but though the college was on the south side of Melmond, even from there he could hear Hein screaming.

* * *

><p>Half an hour later, Kefka left the Inn, his good mood completely destroyed.<p>

"Didn't you find what you were looking for?" Gilgamesh asked as Kefka stormed by with clenched fists and a sour face.

"Plan is right on schedule, ask the syrup machine for details, leave me alone, bye."

Gilgamesh didn't leave him alone. Kefka was aware, even as he pushed through the sobbing throngs around the clinic, ignoring the grasping hands, that the cloaked giant was trying to follow him through the mob. Well, phooey; that was his problem, then. Kefka kicked the clinic doors open, cracking the magic seal as easily as an egg, and inside he went. With him went the crowd of zombies, swamping and stampeding as if their unlives depended on getting through that door.

Gilgamesh wasn't able to get through the bottleneck. He had to wait until the last zombie had filtered inside before he was finally able to enter himself.

The scene that met him was grisly.

From the door onwards, zombies lay in heaps. Their arms spread, stiffening finally in true death. There, in the middle of the room, was a medicine cart. Sitting on it was Kefka. He was cross-legged, and in his lap was what Gilgamesh initially thought was a child. On closer inspection, it was just a porcelain doll. Its burgundy dress was old and slightly moth-eaten, but clean; its golden curls were set perfectly. Only its face disturbed him. The moonlight filtering through the windows made it look dead.

"Is that yours, or did you find it here?" Gilgamesh asked.

"Because this is the sort of thing hospitals keep on hand for emergencies. Of course it's mine, genius! Why are you following me?"

Gilgamesh stepped over a zombie. He grimaced, then looked back to Kefka.

"Hey!" Kefka said. "I had nothing to do with this one, 'kay? When they got inside, they just keeled over, splat! Needed no help from me at all!"

Gilgamesh continued to make his way through the fallen zombies.

"Fine, you're obviously not going away. So here's what Hein told me. First, they're taking the axe north-ish, through the nasty swamp which he is sure will kill them and Exdeath and I are sure will not. So that's where we're going. Northish! Happy now?"

Gilgamesh sat on the cart next to him.

"Sure you aren't. It's Squall Leonhart and... and Terra Branford. Did you get bit by a zombie on the way in? Am I going to have to put you out of my misery?"

"That's a fancy doll."

"Most expensive one they had in the shop. Y'know, people always say I'm crazy, but that Hein? Hoo boy! Is he a special brand of nuts! I bet he eats puppies."

"I feel like you're changing the subject."

"I bet he's opened a restaurant that serves puppy."

"What subject did you change again?"

"Which I'd normally respect, but not in his case." Kefka folded his arms around the doll. It was hard to tell if he was hugging it or crushing its head. He dropped his voice to a raspy low. " 'Don't kill him,' Exdeath says to me. He says, 'We don't want whatever he serves interfering with our plans.' As if! If 'whatever he serves' is anything like the Empire, I'd be saving it time, 'cause it'll just kill him itself later. Too bad the Soldiers of Cosmos have such a headstart on us. As soon as Exdeath catches up, we're leaving."

When Gilgamesh finally figured out Kefka didn't want a healing conversation, he wandered out of the clinic to find his leafy master.

Kefka raised the doll with one hand, as if he were going to hurl it to the ground and smash it among all the other dead. For some reason, he didn't.

For some reason, he never did.

He did, however, burn down the clinic.

* * *

><p>Celes, Squall, and Terra set up camp in the shadows of Mount Duergar. Until the sun rose, it wouldn't be safe to go any further; and with the trip to Matoya's cave likely to consume most of the next day, they needed to get what little sleep they could.<p>

That's what Celes told herself as she tossed and turned.

Eventually, she gave up and threw the blankets aside.

"It's not time for your watch," Squall said as she sat down beside him.

"It's not doing me any good to lay there, worrying. If I can't fall asleep tomorrow night, I'll have Terra knock me out. With magic, I mean."

They hadn't wanted to risk a fire, but from this perch at the north of an old dwarven cave, Celes could still see the marsh they'd crossed, and the heath it had become. Past that was a small lagoon, overgrown with Witherbane that lay like elephant trunks in the water, and from there, the ground became stony.

"This reminds me of my exam," Squall said. "I almost missed it. Landed myself in the infirmary the day of. They dropped us in a place like this, though. We had to navigate it on a time limit to pass."

Celes wrapped her arms around her knees. "I had to do something like that, too. Although we weren't allowed weapons, armor, medicine, food, or water. Also, our 'time limit' was that they poisoned us before we went in, so we had to be finished in time to take the antidote. There wasn't enough for everyone, either, so it was distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis."

Squall narrowed his eyes, but he was quiet.

Celes scanned the ground below for signs of movement. Nothing, not even an animal.

"That makes no sense," Squall said.

"Hmm?"

"They were hard on us in Balamb Garden. Could have killed us hard, and for good reason; we were training to be combat specialists. Lives would be depending on us. But they never did anything so... so..."

"Deliberately cruel and unfair?" Celes said. "Cyan, an enemy combatant who later fought at my side in the Returners, said the same thing when we compared training."

"How was that supposed to make you stronger?"

Celes picked up a small, smooth stone. "It wasn't supposed to make us stronger. It was supposed to make us meaner."

Without thinking, she pulled the bandanna out of her purse and spread it across her lap.

"I wouldn't care if I never got my memories back if it weren't for this."

Something flickered in Squall's eyes as Celes smoothed the cloth. "That belongs to someone, doesn't it? Someone who's still on your world."

"Someone I don't remember," Celes said, sighing. "And want to, so badly."

The air was heavy with an unspoken thought. Squall reached for one of the pockets in his jacket, but when he saw Celes was watching, he flattened his hand against the ground.

They both snapped to attention simultaneously as another set of blankets was thrown into a heap. Soon, Terra appeared beside them. She sat down without a word.

"Tomorrow is gonna be a long day," Squall said.

"It's already tomorrow," Terra replied.

* * *

><p>At least, when the sneak attack came, all three were awake to meet it.<p>

It started with a tumbling pebble. It dislodged from a ledge above the cave, rolled down to the spot where Celes and the others were sitting, and came to a stop between them. Celes looked up to see a shadow, muscular and caped, holding a sword. The shadow looked back at her, at her golden hair flowing as she jumped to her feet, at the grace with which she drew Silverdream... and oddly, bashfully saluted her. Squall leapt to meet the figure, gunblade drawn; it met steel, and sparks flew.

With that opening shot, the camp descended into bedlam. A knight with a flowing, decorative robe thrown over his armor faded out of thin air beside Celes, sword drawn. She just barely had time to parry his first strike and absorb his second, a bubbling Grand Cross. The knight got a second's warning before Terra's boot collided with his head, then her flame cascaded around him, pushing him away.

"Exdeath's down here!" Terra yelled up to Squall.

"His second-in-command, Gilgamesh, is up here," Squall said, strike for strike with the red-caped swordsman.

These names were unfamiliar to Celes. But the next voice she heard, she recognized.

Ever since Terra told Celes he was here, she'd known they'd eventually cross paths, even if she actively tried to avoid it. She'd also figured on his making a 'grand entrance' while she was occupied with some other enemy so he could stab her in the back; that was just the way he fought. Still, when she turned to find him jumping into Exdeath's vacant spot, she tensed. She couldn't get his name out of her mouth. The best she could manage was an angry:

"YOU."

Kefka smirked, dagger drawn. "Hey, remember this? You jammed it between my ribs! I thought you might want it back!"

"Obviously, I didn't stab you hard enough." Having said as much as she intended to, Celes fired a high-level ice spell in his face at point-blank range.

Squall kicked Gilgamesh off the cliff. The swordsman landed right between them with a thud. Kefka tried to take advantage of the surprise, thrusting with the dagger. Terra threw herself between them, blocking the blade with her gladius. She and Celes stood back-to-back, swords ready.

"Ladies, please! I brought both my feet. You can both kiss them at once. No need to fight over the honor!"

Squall followed Gilgamesh down the cliff-face (although in a more controlled manner). He deflected Exdeath's sword. The crack of metal again filled Celes's head...

_...sparring with short-haired man in a green coat, his smile warm even as his technique was perfect... General Leo?_

_...Standing on a wooden platform that had been wrapped with paper stone and silk flowers... the Opera House..._

Celes cried out, grabbing her head with one hand. It was all she could do to keep her grip on Silverdream with the other. What was this? Yes, she knew. Terra had warned her. If she got into a fight with someone else from her world, her memories would start flooding back to her. She hadn't expected it to be like this, though, painful and uncontrollable.

Blustery winds rustled her hair, picked small stones from the mountain. Terra! She'd stretched her hands, summoning twisting winds for cover. Celes ran for it, her head aching.

Exdeath appeared before her. "I must have Silverdream!"

_Him, too? _But what could he want with the axe? Had Chaos thrown in with Astos and Hein? She fought him back in spite of the pain. Her last blow staggered him.

The two sides separated into lines for a moment: Celes, Squall, and Terra, facing Exdeath, Gilgamesh, and Kefka.

"I'm... here," Exdeath said suddenly.

"Uh, yeah," Gilgamesh said. "There you are."

"Here," He repeated. "I'm here..."

Kefka stroked his chin. "I know the idea was to take 'em to school, but that doesn't mean we need to report present."

Exdeath laughed. Celes hadn't found the joke very funny herself, but soon, she began to suspect that was not what Exdeath was laughing at. In fact, though she'd only heard a little of Exdeath's voice, it didn't sound like _he_ was the one laughing at all.

The Witherbane poured over the rock ledge like a raging storm cloud.

The camp erupted into battle again, but this time time, all blades present were dedicated to the single purpose of clearing the poisoned vines.

Terra grabbed Celes's hand. "Now! We can get away in the confusion!"

Squall sliced a creeper right down the middle. The two halves wriggled like a forked tongue. He backed away.

"Oh, no you don't!" Kefka yelled, hurling a fireball as they retreated.

His aim was off, though. Celes didn't even have to absorb it. Soon, the tangle of Witherbane- and the Soldiers of Chaos caught up in it- were far behind them.


	5. Chapter 3: The Dark King

Chapter Three: The Dark King

Terra could still remember how she'd come to see her first play.

Her isolation was for her own safety, her nurses assured her. The outside world hated Espers, they told her; they thought them responsible for everything from all the wars since the Triad's self-petrification to falling bread and souring milk. The fanciful stories they brought Terra from the bookstores and libraries supported this. Any time an Esper was included, it was a barely-sentient beast with too many arms, too many teeth, and too few brains, played either as a villain or a deserving butt of pratfalls. That left Terra no reason to doubt what her nurses told her, and so most of the time, she was content to stay in her quarters when she wasn't training, either reading or baking.

Well... not _content_, exactly. She was missing something. She'd never have thought about leaving, though. That changed when she started getting a visitor.

She was so surprised she'd almost upset a tray of lemon bars from a cooling rack, the first time he'd knocked on her door. Nobody knocked on her door, not even sweet old Cid; the staff just walked right in. She had to scrape through several scenes from the novels she'd read before she could remember what she was supposed to say.

"Come in!"

He didn't so much step through the door as trip through it, a cadet some years her senior. Terra didn't have enough contact with humans to be able to tell just how much older he was. He wasn't gray like Cid, but blond, when he pulled off his regulation helmet to reveal a non-regulation ponytail.

"You? Seriously, Stickbug?" He marched up and scrutinized her as if she were standing in an inspection line. "You're what they're keeping so secret up here? If you're an Esper, shouldn't you at least have three eyes?"

"I only have two eyes, and I don't think you're supposed to be here," Terra said.

"Don't be ridiculous! I'm invited! I have clearance for this whole level!" He stopped by the rack of cookie-bars. "But am I supposed to be here, specifically? No. Are these for a booth or sale or something, or can I have one?"

Terra, in a near panic, asked, "What if you get caught?"

"I'll say I got lost."

"But that's a lie!"

"Yes, it is."

Terra knew, from her books, that when someone was confronted in a lie, they were either supposed to deny it in a vehement rage, or be so guilty they apologized on the spot. His blunt, shameless admission completely threw her. She didn't know how to respond to it. He didn't seem worried, though, and her nurses always told her that if they weren't worried, she shouldn't be. Terra saw no reason she shouldn't apply them to this cadet, as well. He had clearance. "They're for anybody who wants them, so have as many as you like."

As he scooped up an entire row, his sleeve shifted enough that Terra could see red pinpricks in his arm, surrounded by thick, black bruising.

"Did you hurt yourself?" She asked. "I can heal it, if you want."

He buttoned his cuff more tightly, and for the first time, looked nervous. "Oh. No, that's okay. That's actually from a treatment. I'm not supposed to take anything for it the techs don't prescribe. That probably includes Esper magic. Hey, see where that big clock tower is, outside your window? There are all kinds of shops over there. You should set up a kiosk and sell these things. You'd make a killing."

That was how Terra became friends with Kefka Palazzo. She could never predict when he'd stop by. Sometimes he'd show up a few times a week. Others, she wouldn't see him for months. Sometimes he brought her new candies, or books that were nothing like the stuffy tailored things the nurses allowed her. But he always knocked.

Then, after they'd continued like that a few years, he casually mentioned he was going to see _The Spring The Ice Never Melted_, playing in the downtown theater.

"That's supposed to be a classic," Terra said. "But I haven't even read it. What's it about?"

"The usual. Low-caste woman's in love with a high-caste man who's betrothed to some meddling harridan, an Esper shows up to cause them relationship trouble because he was just that bored, and then everyone commits suicide. It sounds like crap, if you ask me, but then I don't have to worry about understanding too much of it, 'cause the whole thing's in some three-hundred-year-old dialect."

"Why are you going if you think you'll hate it?" Terra asked.

"Because Celes is going to be there."

All Terra knew of Celes was that she was Cid's adopted ward. She'd only seen her once, ages ago, but the picture was burned into her head. A golden-haired girl, wielding a wooden sword almost as long as she was tall, racing through the factory halls with the old scientist. "Ha! Take that!" She'd said, thrusting the sword. "I'll save the city from the Kaiser Dragon!" Terra had asked her nurses if she could play, too, but they had refused. Celes wasn't allowed on Terra's level of the factory, and besides, everyone hated Espers. In retrospect, Terra should have questioned that right away. She couldn't imagine that skipping girl hating her.

"I've been trying to get a word in with her all week," Kefka complained, "But she's always off on some expedition in the Veldt, or sneaking into Narshe through an abandoned mine shaft, or serving as the Emperor's personal guard through the Phantom Forest. So I was thinking of sitting a few rows above her, under that old privacy box, and accidentally spilling my drink on her. Then I can introduce myself while she's yelling at me."

"I don't know if that'll make the best impression," Terra said. She was disquieted by this conversation, although she couldn't figure out why, and quickly gave up trying.

"An impression is an impression, right?"

The next time Cid took Terra down to the floor for training, she asked him, "Is there any way I could go to the theater?"

The question stunned him. Terra kept talking.

"I know I'll be in danger, so I've got it all figured out. I can sneak out in a tech's uniform, and rent the privacy box, where no one in the audience will be able to see me. I can afford it, can't I?"

Terra knew she was asking a rhetorical question. The Empire was as liberal with its gil as its blows; once it had sculpted its troops into remorseless killers, void of any scruples, it had to keep their loyalty (such as it was) _somehow_. Money was the favored method. Terra, though, had no occasion to spend hers for anything but books and ingredients.

When Cid finally found his voice, he asked, "You came up with that plan by yourself?"

"I've been working on it for days!"

He cleared his throat. "Though some here won't agree with me, I see no reason you can't go. We'll see what we can do. May I ask you something, though? Where did you find out so much about the theater?"

Cid's voice, his face wrinkled from smiling, made Terra yearn to tell him the whole adventure. She wanted to tell him how she'd dreamed about being in the audience proper, waving at Kefka across the room, making friends with Celes even though- or perhaps _because_- she'd been so expressly forbidden. Surely he'd understand!

"I don't know their names," Terra said, "But I heard some techs talking about it during my last test, while I was waiting for them to finish taking blood samples. It sounded like they had fun."

That was a lie. Yes, it was.

* * *

><p>"There. Is your head feeling better?"<p>

Celes opened her eyes as Terra removed her hand from her forehead. The sun, high above them, no longer felt like needles.

"Much. Thank you."

"It stops hurting after a few battles," Terra said. "Then you'll remember new things almost without noticing."

The breeze was cool, crisp. It kept Celes, Squall, and Terra alert as they walked. The going had gotten easier, too; after they'd crossed the old bridge, the ground leveled, and the rocks disappeared. Like Cornelia, the Witherbane was not strong here, though it was present. There were even a few weak blankets of blossoming vines under their feet. There was nothing but blue sky and sunlight above them.

Celes didn't mind silence. She'd worked in silence most of her life. Squall seemed to be the same. Neither of them felt as if they had to keep up a pretense of a conversation. Normally, Terra was like that, too, quiet and reserved. That was why it took Celes so long to realize she was brooding.

"Did you remember something, too? Something that upset you?"

Terra looked astonished, then strangely guilty, more like a little girl caught stealing treats than a powerful sorceress. "No. Yes. I remembered something new, yes. But it didn't upset me, no. It's silly. I feel childish for thinking about it this whole time. Do you remember that play? _The Spring the Ice Never Melted_?"

Celes flipped through her new stack of memories, hoping she could match the name to one of them. "Not very well, although I think I found it pleasant enough."

"I can't stop thinking about the little girl with the doll."

"Little girl, little... ah! I know now. The illicit child of the nobleman hero and the impoverished heroine, wasn't she? Spent half the play on the brink of death after being cursed by that evil Esper, and... oh..." Celes bit her lip.

"Yes, that's the part I meant," Terra said, not the slightest bit insulted. "She was saved when the Imperial General fought through a Figaro sandstorm to bring her an old Magi relic that could break the curse. He also stopped in the palace to buy her a doll. That's what I was thinking about, how foolish I was back then. Do you know, the first time I saw the play, I thought the _doll_ was what healed her?"

"That's a perfectly logical conclusion for a child to draw. How old were you, anyway?"

"Fourteen," Terra said.

She said no more, and for the rest of the journey, the silence remained unbroken. But Celes couldn't shake the feeling something was still disturbing her.

* * *

><p>Terra had briefly told Celes about Manikins, the living crystal machines of this world that could imitate the forms of others and who had been reprogrammed by the forces of Chaos to attack their enemies in Cosmos's ranks on sight. With that in mind, Celes was glad the first one she saw was inoperational. There were, however, two things that bothered her.<p>

The first was that this particular Manikin, glazed violet, looked exactly like Squall. She hadn't expected the imitations to be quite that accurate or lifelike. This, in a way, caused the second: the Manikin had been bitten in half and was bleeding purple all over the flowers and Witherbane-infected grass. Even if it wasn't really Squall, the sight made her ill.

It didn't bother Squall himself nearly as much. He knelt right beside its gooey purple innards. "This is a single bite. Witherbane didn't do this."

Celes turned away and, through the brush, saw a lump of filmy gray against the twilight sky. It looked absurdly like a molded pudding gone bad; three layered domes of stone, carved something like a house, writhing under a blanket of worms. That must be Matoya's Cave. But the worms covering it! What were they? Each one was the size of the Phantom Train, with rows of hooked, scythe-like teeth in their cavernous mouths. Celes thought she knew what happened to the Manikin, and while she wasn't sure what the worms were doing to the cave, she also thought she and her friends would share the Manikin's fate if they got anywhere near it.

"Over here," Celes said, motioning.

Terra peeked through the shrubs. "Are they... eating it?"

"Sculpting it," Squall said. "Or un-sculpting it, is more like it."

"Over there," Terra said, pointing.

Celes looked. At the side of the cave were two figures. She could barely make out the elaborate robe of Astos, the elven king. The other, then, must be Hein. They stopped, Astos said something, and then they both passed into one of the cavern's doors.

"The worms aren't bothering them," Squall said. "Any idea why?"

"It might be like Lich said," Terra replied. "You know, about Witherbane being a totally unique substance of concentrated malice. Maybe they recognize that. But how will we get inside?"

Another memory came to Celes. _She was in chains, in a dank prison cell. A guard entered. She had the shifts memorized, so she knew he wasn't on schedule. Then he took off his helmet and, in spite of her situation, she laughed... this was no new tormenter, but that infamous thief..._

"We have to find a way to imitate it," She said. "Fool them into thinking we're allies. But how? We can't very well wrap ourselves in Witherbane. If it didn't die, it'd strangle us."

"Guys," Squall said.

Squall had returned to the dead Manikin-half, then paced a few feet south of it, following a trail of purple crystal blood. Only, Celes, noticed, the crystal got less purple the further they walked. The oldest, most coagulated blood had turned the rot-black of the Witherbane beneath it.

Later, covered in a layer of gloppy black crystal, Celes, Squall, and Terra approached the cave. They'd decided, in a quick conference, that it would be safer to bring Silverdream with them than leave it outside, and that, should the crystal not work, Celes and Terra would twin-teleport the three of them to safety.

"How long do you suppose we have before this crystal starts imitating us?" Celes asked, eyeing her grimy fingers.

"That Manikin looked to have been down for about an hour," Squall said. "We make it inside, we probably shouldn't hang around any longer than that."

"I hope we can find something by then."

The three of them stopped talking as the first worm slithered across their path. They kept walking steadily; there was no telling what might alert the worm that they were imposters. Celes and Terra readied themselves to cast a teleport spell if necessary. The gelatinous tube stopped, curled around itself, opened its wide mouth.

Just as Celes was about to call for retreat, it lay back on the ground and continued on its way.

Celes slowed when she saw the entrance to Matoya's cave. It was crossed with what looked to her like an ornate spider's web, tinged slightly red. "What's that? Some kind of security?"

"Oh! Nothing like that," Terra said. "That's a Gate. The cave must be in bent space. It's safe. As safe as can be expected."

Celes felt a change as she passed through the Gate, something like a change in pressure and temperature. She also found that where, a moment ago, she had been walking on a flat path, she was now on a steep ramp. Beneath her was sandy stone. It looked as if it might have once been stairs; traces of blue thread showed there may have once been a carpet over them. They were gone. Reliefs on the walls were worn away. Celes could tell there had been murals there once, but couldn't begin to guess what they'd depicted. Even the yellow color and grainy texture of the stone was fading under the slime of the worms, leaving a melted landscape with no identity.

They climbed the eroded stairs and emerged on a platform of soapy, opaque crystal. Another flight up, a mesa that appeared to have been swept clean of dust, leaving nothing but dull rock. Then, Celes passed under an arch and found herself on a balcony she almost recognized.

"Is this the Magitek Factory?" She asked. She knew her way around the place so thoroughly, she could discern its layout, even though it, too, had been stripped. Gone were the jars in which experiments had been kept. Only empty sockets indicated they had ever been there. Gone were the pipes and the steam. The lights were out, and even the coppery metal had been scraped to a dull, mottled gray. "What happened to it? Are all the Gates like this?"

The space carried voices. The conversation was coming from below the balcony, so Celes, Terra, and Squall flattened themselves to the floor and spied over the edge.

The first man to emerge was Astos. With him was Hein. What happened to him, though? His eyes, visible now, were red, glazed, and unfocused. It didn't look like he was listening to Astos. It seemed to take all his power just to move where he wanted.

"The Citadel of Trials is ready. We need only gather the strength to draw the master into the Rift, and our war will be won. That crystal-blooded bitch and her lapdog swordsman are going to regret resisting my armies when _he_ arrives!"

Terra's mouth narrowed in a rare display of rage.

Hein's voice was as unsteady as his gait. "See to it that clown of Chaos's receives special handling, as well."

"_Kefka _shellacked him that badly?" Squall muttered. "Hein should be ashamed of himself."

Celes swallowed a laugh. Beside her, Terra paled even further.

The conversation became difficult to hear, as Astos and Hein passed into a hall beneath the balcony. Celes followed the railing beyond. There had to be a way down.

The Magitek Factory had become such an unfamiliar place, the first familiar thing Celes saw jabbed her in the eye. It wasn't much: one of the small lights that dotted the wall had been switched on. _Why that one? _ She approached it, and found next to it a small parchment rolled up and stuffed between the panels. She pulled it free. The light blinked out.

_"Let me say this first: if I was your enemy, I'd have told them you were here. I saw you come in through the south gate. It won't take you to their sanctuary, but you wouldn't make it out of there anyway. The crystal snot was clever, but it won't fool anything they keep down there. Instead, I invite you to take the hidden door two panels to your right. This missive is enchanted and will be all the key you need. I'll tell you all I know. - X"_

Squall and Terra noticed what Celes had. "What's that?"

Celes counted the panels and pressed the parchment against the second to the right. It clicked and swung open.

"Let's find out, shall we?"

* * *

><p>In contrast to the sterility they'd left, the room the hidden path brought them to was almost cozy. The smell of old paper hit Celes as soon as she entered, and sure enough, the walls were lined with bookshelves. The books and parchments they held were ancient, some jeweled, some brittle, but all were cared for. Powerful enchantments bound them. Magic books. A whole library of them. There was also an impressive collection of crystals; solid, on stands, liquid, of various shades, in bottles. Something brushed Celes's leg. She was startled, and that didn't change when she saw what it was. A grass broom, mottled with Witherbane, was walking in circles on its own and had bumped into her. It bent as if looking up at her.<p>

"Majek ilse disniruoy daerpsot tnawi," the broom said.

"Adorable, isn't he?"

From behind the bookshelves, a silver-haired man stepped. Scholar? Warrior? It was hard for Celes to tell with him. His wooden staff was magical in nature, but could just as easily have been used as a bludgeon. His heavy cape looked like it could be easily discarded. Under his dark skin, his muscles were lean. If he'd lured Celes here for a fight, she expected he'd put up a better one than Astos had.

"The second they moved in," he continued, "They fed the others to the Wending-Worms. They're trying to erase Matoya from her own cave. It's just what they do, as a matter of course. I was able to save that one, but he's been a bit odd since he came down with Witherbane."

"Majek il!" The broom repeated forcefully. The man scooped it up and deposited it on a silk cushion amidst a mess of blossoming vines. It turned around a few times before falling flat in what Celes could only assume was a nap.

"Nasty moon-flowers," he said, snatching a handful of vines and throwing them. "No matter how many times I pull them up, they grow back. Why can't Astos figure out how to get rid of _them?"_

"Are you a prisoner here?" Celes asked.

"They don't want me to know I am. They've given me back my crystals. Restored my personal library. Offered to reconstruct my tower, as if the favored apprentice of the great sage Noah could be so cheaply purchased! For all that, yes, I am a prisoner. I'm Xande. You must be the troublesome bearers of Silverdream."

"Celes."

"Terra," Terra said, and when Squall didn't give his name, "And this is Squall."

Squall crossed his arms. "I'm not about to trust you just because you say you want to help us. Hein said that, too. How can you prove you're not on his side?"

"I'm not on his side, I'm not on your side," Xande said, beckoning. "Sides mean little to me, as Chaos found when he summoned me here to fight for him. I'm my own champion, and no one else's. That's why I'm willing to give you the information you require. It is in my interests, perhaps more than anyone else's, that the blight is stopped in its tracks."

Xande pulled a musty old book from a shelf and opened it on the table, next to a bubbling vial of green crystal.

"This is what you're looking for. This is the Banecore Tree."

Celes looked at the crisp, sallow parchment. She couldn't read whatever language the book had been written in, but the illustrations were clear enough. Curling around the paper, through the ornate calligraphy, were swarming blackened vines, infected by Witherbane. Their tendrils spired to one point: a grotesque tree, gnarled and twisted, oozing something that looked like blood.

Xande paced. "When Witherbane is to be introduced into a new land- for this is no natural occurrence, but a weapon and an artifice- a Banecore Tree is planted in a safe location. From that central point, the Witherbane grows and spreads throughout the whole planet. Cut down the Banecore Tree, _all _the Witherbane connected to it dies. Only one blade can pierce the bark of a Banecore Tree, and you wear it on your back. And, as I'm sure you seen, there's another complication."

_Apprentice? He sounds more like an instructor_, Celes thought. "You said the Banecore Tree has to be planted. We could find and cut down the one causing this outbreak, but whoever brought it here can just plant another one. Do you mean we must find their mysterious 'master'?"

"Somewhat," Xande said. "You see, the creature Astos and Hein now serve has no name, at least none that he's ever bothered sharing. In all my research, I've only seen him referred to as 'the Dark King.' He's more of a concept than an actual living being. He can manipulate events through his servants, but he can't do anything for himself unless he, to put it bluntly, steals someone else's body. The one he has now is apparently too weak for his purposes here; and no, I regret I do not know what those are. All I know is that he needs someone born of magic." Xande raised his staff. "Say, the favored apprentice of the great sage, Noah."

Terra gasped. "They're planning to sacrifice you? That's awful!"

"So why haven't they done it already?" Squall asked.

"An excellent question. This is where it all comes together. The three of you have been fighting the Witherbane. Trying to discern its identity and weakness. In all that time, didn't you ever wonder what its _purpose _might be?"

"Didn't you say it was a weapon?" Celes asked. "Wouldn't its purpose be destruction?"

Xande lay a hand on his forehead. "If only that were so. The rite that will bring the Dark King to this world requires massive amounts of vital energy, more than any magic spell. So much, in fact, the only way to gather it is to steal it from multiple sources. That's what Witherbane does. It saps vital energy from the plants it infects and feeds it directly to the Dark King. Only when he has gathered enough would the sacrifice to summon him be successful. That's the only reason I'm still alive."

Celes thought. "So, when this Dark King wants to attack a new world, he finds someone on that world to plant a Banecore Tree. It infects the plants with Witherbane, draws out their life force, and sends it to the Dark King. Once he's gathered a certain amount of that, he sends his servants to sacrifice a person 'born of magic,' and if they succeed..."

"Yes, that's correct," Xande said.

Celes rubbed her temples. "Do you know where it has been planted on _this _world?"

"Indeed, I do. It's east of Gaia."

Squall said, "There is no east of Gaia. It's ocean."

"_Was _ocean, before the Witherbane came." Xande looked down, then pointed to Celes's arm. "You'd best be leaving. The crystal is shifting."

She checked the crystal gel on her hands; certainly, beneath the black, she was beginning to see splotches of red. Terra's was the same. Squall's was changing to the same shade of violet as his Manikin double.

"I'll take you outside. I know a shortcut. Follow me."

Terra grabbed Xande's arm. "Come with us!"

"They'd find me, and you because of me. If you truly want to help, hurry. Strike the blow before the Dark King gathers enough energy for his purpose."

"But what if we're too late?"

Xande flashed her a lopsided smirk. "I've dealt with a situation like this before. I have a plan that, in a pinch, might just slow them down."

* * *

><p>"I don't know," Kefka said, lowering the red blossom and cupping his hand over it. "I kinda like these 'nasty moon-flowers.' Glad it grows on your guys' world, too, 'cause I've never seen anything like it. What did you call it again?"<p>

"Whisperweed," Exdeath said. "And thanks to it, we can cut them off before they reach Gaia and seize Silverdream."

Gilgamesh paid no attention. He sat on a moldy stump, gazing at Celes's barrette. "The lady or the axe. I don't know which is more beautiful."

On some level, Kefka could still relate, but he didn't think he could count on Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh couldn't count on him, either, so it evened out. It was, however, one more thing on a laundry list of complications to the seemingly-simple task of stealing an axe.

"Why don't we just let them cut down the Banecore Tree?" Gilgamesh asked. "Does it matter who kills it, as long as it dies?"

Exdeath snarled. "No. In the absence of the Geomancer to which it was presented, that axe belongs to me. Surely you, of all people, understand the sentiment."

Kefka wondered if that was true, or if it was the Witherbane talking again. Did Exdeath want the axe to cure himself, or prevent a cure? Oh, well, that wasn't his problem. "I don't think another ambush is the best way to go about getting Silverdream. I know the last one worked out super-stupendously and all- I've still got rotten sticks in my hair- but what if 'you' show up again? Nah, I've got something better in mind."

"Then let's hear it, by all means," Exdeath said.

Before he explained, Kefka crushed the Whisperweed in his hand. It wasn't so much that he was afraid of eavesdropping. He just hadn't smashed anything in awhile, and the flowers were invitingly pulpy. He wondered if the vine was Exdeath's auntie or something.

* * *

><p>In the end, Terra had become quite the rebel. She questioned. She argued. Eventually, she disobeyed, and that had gotten a hypnocrown slapped on her head. All of it started with one insignificant act: she snuck away from the factory. It was the first time Terra left without permission, and like the questions, the disobedience, and the play, she did it because of him.<p>

Kefka hadn't been to see her since he'd hatched his drink-spilling plot. That shouldn't have upset her. It wasn't unlike him to disappear. This, though, gave her a bad feeling. She found herself becoming her own lie, listening in on the techs who tested her, pressing her ear against the door to listen to her nurses gossip. Eventually, her efforts were rewarded... chillingly.

"He hasn't spoken a word since, you know, he responded so poorly to that last infusion. Hasn't tried to leave the lower levels. Hasn't even tried to leave his bed. Nobody knows what to do."

The lower levels? Surely the "him" was someone else, Terra told herself. It would be ridiculous to think, of all the people working in the Magitek Factory, they were talking about her Kefka.

But who else was getting "infusions?"

It was blustery and bland outside. The wind couldn't decide which way it wanted to blow, so it picked up as many of Vector's scant leaves as it could find and swirled them in the air. The sky couldn't decide if it wanted to rain, so it hung like old wet wool on a clothesline. And Terra...Terra sat at her window, unable to decide whether she should crawl through it or not.

It wouldn't have been possible for most people. The window was tiny. Terra, though, was also tiny, and she thought she could squeeze through if she had to. Did she have to? How furious would the staff be if they found her missing? What if they locked her away in a place without windows? What if they took it out on Cid instead of her?

But what if she didn't go? The techs were stumped, they said, but the techs weren't Espers. They didn't know magic. She did. If Espers' magic could cause chaos and destruction beyond the capabilities of humans, like all the stories said, why shouldn't the opposite also be true?

Besides, if it were her, wouldn't Kefka break the rules to come see her? Yes, he would. He wouldn't even have to think about it.

The window was a tighter squeeze than Terra had anticipated, but once outside it, she didn't have as much trouble floating to the ground below.

She was horrified throughout her trek to the city market. Every time she passed someone, she was certain she'd be recognized, that the mobs would follow, like she'd always read about. As she walked, her confidence grew. Nobody paid her much mind at all. The people on the streets of Vector moved brusquely, heads down, paying attention to themselves. The streets were lined up neatly, too, even though paper and other light debris floated around their corners. Terra had little trouble following the distant clock tower to the market.

She tried to straighten her wind-blown hair as she entered the shop. The old man behind the counter hadn't even turned to face her completely when she said, "I need your best doll, please. It's for my sick friend."

"You might say all my dolls are my best," The old man said, sniffing beneath a drooping salt-and-pepper moustache. "Which you want depends on what you're looking for. We've got these wax dolls, here. Perfectly realistic skin, soft to the touch. Thing is, they don't take well to heat."

The old man showed Terra a row of blushing dolls who, indeed, looked as if they might be caught breathing.

"We've got bisque, too. Sturdier, but still softer than the shiny, polished old style."

"That's pretty," Terra said, "And I think I need something that will stand heat."

"Bisque it is, then. Now, for the hair. You can get it sculpted right onto the doll's head. Never messes. If your friend is going to be playing with her a lot, it might last longer. Can't brush it, though. For that, there's rooted hair, or wigs."

"Which do you like best?" Terra asked. "Between the wigs and rooted hair, I mean. I don't think it'll get too messed up, and I want it to be soft. My friend is very sick."

The old man looked at her strangely, but brought out a new selection.

Terra looked at each one carefully. Even though she'd narrowed down her choices considerably, they came in all styles and sizes, and she'd never been presented with such variety. It was a challenge to choose just one.

Her eyes settled on one at the corner. It was a little larger than the others, which she thought would be better, since Kefka was so tall. Also, there was something about her bouncy blonde curls and wide blue eyes Terra found appealing. The burgundy dress she wore was old-fashioned, like something for a princess, with panniers, a thick petticoat, and strings of pearls. Terra reached into her purse and put the gil on the table. She wasn't sure how much she'd need, so she'd filled it full.

"Her! She's perfect! What's her name?"

The old man's face changed when he saw the pile. There was something in it Terra couldn't quite identify. He stretched his hand over the gold, drew it across the table. Wasn't it enough? She could go back for more. He just had to let her explain.

He closed his eyes, counted out three of the coins, and passed the rest back to Terra.

"You shouldn't be wandering around town with so much gil on you, girl," He said, as he wrapped the doll in paper and packed her in a box like a coffin. "As for her name, she doesn't have one yet. Your friend will probably want to make one up herself."

Terra took the box and her change. "Thank you! Thank you so much!" She thought. "Oh, but my friend's not a 'her.' It's a 'him.' I think he's a little older than me."

She dashed away before she could see the old man's shocked face.

Terra was encouraged when she returned to her room. It didn't appear to have been ransacked. There were no alarms. The door wasn't opened. Perhaps nobody knew she'd gone anywhere. She crept to the hall and checked both left and right. Nobody there.

Technically, nowhere in the factory was off-limits to Terra. She was merely discouraged from leaving this level. Like the stories of the outside, the discouraging usually worked. Not this time, though. Present under her arm, she walked straight for the end of the hall and flipped open the register. Lower levels. She scanned the labels. She didn't see Kefka's name. However, she didn't see her name, either. Over her room, there was a big red stamp marked 'classified.' Another room bore the same stamp. It was in the corner of the factory basement.

When she flew down the stairs and entered that room, her fears were completely confirmed.

There was a gurney in the room. The man on it was indeed Kefka. And though his eyes were open, he saw nothing. There was no emotion on his face.

Terra opened the doll's box. She cloaked the toy in the strongest healing spell she knew, which at the time was quite weak, then tucked it under Kefka's arm. It was as limp as a corpse's.

She tugged his arm. "I'm here. It's me, Terra. I brought you this so you'd get well."

His blue eyes remained blankly focused on the ceiling.

Terra sat by his bedside. She knitted her fingers through his. When had they gotten so bony? So pale?

Everything came apart. Before Terra knew what she was doing, she'd folded her free arm over his chest and cried. The tears came from nowhere, and they had no end.

"You have to get better!" She choked between sobs. "That's the way it goes! Please!"

No response. Was he even there?

Terra cried. She didn't know how long she stayed there, one arm folded over his chest, only that she was certain, any minute, a tech would try to remove her. Let them try, she thought, suddenly feeling savage and angry. Just let them!

In that instant, his arm tensed around her shoulders like a vise.

"Stickbug? What're you crying for? I feel better already!"

There were things Terra should have noticed. Maybe she did notice the cruel, mocking lilt in his voice, the clawlike pressure of his hand digging into her skin, the jaundiced glaze over his eyes, and ignored them. None of that mattered.

She had her miracle. That was all that mattered.

* * *

><p>"The Dark King needs someone 'born of magic,'" Squall repeated. "What did Xande mean by that?"<p>

Terra snapped out of her dark thoughts long enough to answer. That, at least, was an answer she knew.

"Xande means he's what, on my world, we call an Esper. He means the Dark King needs an Esper's body to exist."


	6. Chapter 4: Brain Spanking

Chapter Four: Brain Spanking

At its heart, all magic was summoning. It came down to what you were trying to summon and where you were calling it from. The most basic spells, fire, ice and thunder, were readily available in most locations; a mage need only reach out to them and coax them to respond. More difficult were the things in harder-to-reach places, the meteors and the Espers and the meltdown at the planet's core. The most challenging spells required the caster to solidify and summon mere concepts- Exdeath's precious-wecious Void, for instance, or Astos's malice-molded Dark King.

Or this.

Not that Kefka wasn't in a perfect place to find it. The city of mermaids, once so far beneath the waves only fairy magic could reach it, had been exposed to the elements, the water that once covered it torn back like a bandage. Pity there was no one left for the sudden change of atmosphere to kill. The mermaids who'd lived here died ages ago, in the cataclysmic opening shots of Cosmos and Chaos's little tiff. Their screaming remained. Kefka could hear it ringing through the mother-of-pearl walls. There were other things, too. Tears nobody heard. Long-scrubbed puddles of blood. Piles of fragmented seashell where homes had once been. It was always the screaming he listened for, though. That always worked best for him.

He clawed straight into the coral pillar with his bare hands, leaving finger-marks that glowed red, then indigo. The light matched his hands, which all of a sudden, looked like every blood vessel in him had ruptured at once. Kefka slashed another mark below it, runes of a language he'd never learned, just, that one fateful day, woke up in a hospital bed _knowing_. They curved with the echoes of agonized lament. Kefka dug for more, dug them out of his own self, as he climbed the pillar, writing. The letters knotted together to form words just as ugly. When he reached the top, he was done.

"Now that's what I call a true work of art!"

Then he fell the whole way down. He didn't even have time to think about flying. The good news was, a damp, salty spaghetti-pile of old kelp was there to break his fall. The bad news was he thought kelp was yucky. The worst news? He only closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again, Gilgamesh was standing over him. Barky must be wanting a progress report, and couldn't be bothered to come get it himself.

Kefka tried to peel himself out of the kelp, but it was slippery. Gilgamesh looked like he thought about offering him a hand, then thought better of it. In fact, he looked a bit queasy. Oh, yeah; he hadn't seen Kefka Trance before. No matter, because Kefka found his feet in no time, and Gilgamesh turned his attention to the enchanted pillar.

"Done?"

"Done!"

Gilgamesh brushed one of the runes and got a minor jolt. He shook his hand. "So this tower you've made is sort of the same as Hein's enchanted gravestones."

Kefka blew a strand of blond hair out of his eyes. "The way Owzer's famous Starlet in oils is sort of like a stick figure some kid scrawled on his window with soap. I think what you mean is that they're both barrier spells."

"Oh."

"You know what I'm talking about?"

"You cursed the Sunken Shrine. What kind of curse is it?"

"Short version?" Kefka grinned, and Gilgamesh stepped back a little. _Oops, forgot about the razor smile, too._"It'll make them see things."

"See things?" Gilgamesh asked. "Like the place suddenly being full of fierce monsters? Or they think they're back at home, and their families appear to lure them into traps?"

Kefka kicked a piece of kelp. "Those are the sorts of ideas I like, but they start asking questions like, 'wasn't I just in a formerly-underwater shrine?' or 'how did this many monsters survive the annihilation of about three-fourths the life on this world?' and the spell's hold weakens, maybe even shatters. In order of us to get the soul-crippling results we're looking for, the illusions have to be convincing. Not a single false note. Didn't your boss ever tell you how he pulled off that trick with the King of Tycoon and his daughters?"

"What trick? This is the first I've heard of it."

"Best way to crush somebody? Find out what they want... and make that your hammer." Kefka felt dizzy. Maybe he should take a break. But what a roll he was on! "What an easy place to stumble. Tripped my fellow cadets, even the Emperor himself... Gestahl, I mean, not that super-fun guy they got back in Discord. How easy to believe what torments your nightmares torments everyone else's, how easy to mistake the gaudy for the horrifying, rage for fear." He laughed. It didn't sound much different from the residual screaming. "Amazing how universal a concept as suffering has escaped so many otherwise-competent tyrants. I have to give Exdeath credit for not being among the hacks. What he did in Karnak, with the Queen? Brilliant! Masterful! ...Hilarious!"

To Kefka's surprise, Gilgamesh didn't ask. He didn't even look like he wanted to. He looked like he would have rather been under a brachiosaur's foot than standing before the cursed pillar.

"So what kind of hammer is going to smash you in the end, Gilgamesh? What did Exdeath offer you in exchange for your blade, hmm? For what rare prize did you sell him your integrity? It must be some kind of something. I've eaten cotton candy with less sugar than you."

The footsteps Kefka heard next were the sound of Gilgamesh storming off in an offended huff.

"Oh, relax," Kefka told the empty space he'd left. "I wasn't being condemning or anything. I just wanted to know Exdeath's trick."

The empty space, however, made no reply.

* * *

><p>If Squall had one advantage in this world, it was this: he was used to losing his memories. The Guardian Forces he manipulated at the Garden leeched them. Therefore, he was not only quite capable of functioning without them, when he woke up in an odd place with no recollection of getting there, he'd become quite adept at reconstructing events from external evidence.<p>

Case in point. Now he was against a wall that shined with the dull pearlesence of a broken seashell. Below him and around him, he could hear the ocean. The ceiling was close, and a narrow shaft ascended into shadowy darkness. He was inside. There was light, though, coming from bioluminescent jellies affixed to the shell.

The jellies...

_Yes, I was walking above here. I was just thinking how much it reminded me of that kitsch seaside hotel back in Balamb, and then the lights went out_. Squall sat up. There was a tight pain in his side._ I must have fallen._

The trickle of water grew closer.

It sounded like the tide was coming in. How far down was he? Squall knelt and examined the stone below him. There was a drain there, a square of crosshatched metal bars. The water came up at least that far. He checked the walls.

A waxy ring of dirt encircled the small space. It was about as high as his ankle.

_Whew_, he thought, _the water doesn't go any farther than that_. Now that he didn't have to worry about drowning, it was time to solve his next problem: getting back to where he'd been. He wondered if he could climb back up the way he'd come down. It was awfully sheer. There was the drain, too; if he could remove that grating, it looked like he'd be able to squeeze through it. That would be a last resort, though. He could hear the water collecting below.

He also heard splashing footsteps.

"Hello?" Asked a tentative voice. "Is someone up there?"

A woman's voice. Yes, Squall had been traveling with two women. Their names returned to him; Terra and Celes. With their names came their voices, and he was certain the person who'd just spoken wasn't either of them. But then, who was it? For Squall was equally certain he _had _heard it before, somewhere...

"Can you see me?" He leaned over the drain. "How far down are you?"

No answer at first, then, "I... I know that voice. Who's there?"

Pale, delicate fingers came from the darkness and wrapped around the iron bars of the grating.

_It can't be!_ "I'm Squall. Can you see me?"

"Barely, but it's so dark down here."

"You can't be too far, if you can reach the grate. I'll take it out and pull you up."

"I don't know if I can move. My leg's twisted."

"You'll be fine," He said, "But can you at least pull away from the grating? I don't have anything to work with but my gunblade. I don't want to hit you, or scorch your eyes with the flash. Can you?"

Hesitation. Nothing but the sound of trickling water.

"I'll try."

She complied with heavy sloshing. Squall knelt by the grate once more, this time examining it for weaknesses. For something so old, it was in pretty good shape. The bars were sealed into the floor. There was nothing to unscrew. He'd have to cut it.

"Squall?" The tiny voice said. "I think the water's getting higher."

As a test, Squall struck the floor. The edge of the gunblade left a small groove. Not deep enough by far. _What's this made of?_

He hit it again. It did even less damage.

"It is. It's up to my knees now."

Squall could hear it, too; the lapping of small waves against the walls of the chamber below as the tide filled it, the splash of a light human trying to move through it. He raised the gunblade and brought it down again. Nothing. He fired it at the metal. Sparks flew. The metal glowed. Yet it didn't break, didn't even bend.

"Squall!"

The water got louder; or maybe he only thought so, maybe his own mind amplified it. He hit the floor and the bars again and again, one blow after another. Shell chipped. What was this? Shouldn't the shell just be crumbling? Why wasn't his weapon getting through? He worked faster. He began to sweat, but still fought. He fought it more fiercely than he ever had a flesh-and-blood enemy, and with more fury, more hatred.

The next scream was cut off by a sudden influx of water. It bubbled out of the grate. It sloshed around his boots. He cut more frantically, his usual cool judgment giving way to panic as nothing worked.

Those fingers wound again around the grate, now completely underwater.

Squall grabbed for them.

He was too late. They sank out of view.

* * *

><p>The second the lights went out, Terra felt hands on her, cruel hands she knew couldn't belong to her friends. She tried to illuminate the darkness with a spell; the haze swallowed her feeble magic. As she grew more desperate, she lashed out blindly. She caught something with her knuckles. She heard a terrible crack. Something warm ran down her fingers and palms.<p>

The wound stirred shark-like frenzy in her unseen assailants. How many were there? She fought with magic, with her fists, with her sword, but the more she pushed back, the more crowded her. Inside her, fear and anger rose in equal measure, squashing her restraint.

Her skin prickled. Her teeth, suddenly sharp, brought the taste of blood to her mouth. Her hands hooked, suddenly sharper than her gladius. She roared as light poured from her. The enemies reached for her still, but they couldn't touch her. In her Trance, she was beyond them. The darkness holding her finally disappeared, leaving her standing on a seashell floor in a shrine lit by jellies.

As Terra's power receded, she felt overwhelmed. Exhaustion crept up on her; how long had it been since any of them had slept? She blinked, partially blinded by the sudden influx of light. It would take a moment for her eyes to adjust. Was it her imagination, or were the walls dirtier than she remembered?

"Celes? Squall? Are you all right?"

Worry began to gnaw at her stomach when there was no answer. She was still too dizzy, too confused. Where had so many enemies come from? Where had they gone?

"Celes?" Terra called again.

"And just who are you calling for?"

Terra turned, her sword ready. Her vision blurred, but she could still make out a glimmering figure in scarlet, wings folded, leaning against the wall. "Kefka! Haven't you given up yet?"

_Maybe he won't notice I'm not seeing so well_, she thought, trying to look steadier than she felt.

He peeled away from the wall and approached her. "A better question might be, why haven't you given up yet?"

Terra batted her eyes rapidly. She had to stay alert! But the walls...

...what was that on the walls?

"Who were you calling for?" He asked again.

That on the walls, veining it like a pattern in marble. It wasn't dirt. It was liquid, red, still wet. Blood. So much of it!

"Tsk, tsk. Where could your friends be?" Kefka shook his head, voice heavy with mock sympathy. "Oh, Terra, what _have_ you done this time?"

Terra looked at her sword. It was also wet. She followed the blade, visually, to her stained hands.

_What... did I do?_ She tried to remember. She, Celes, and Squall had found the Sunken Shrine, an old mermaid's village, sticking out where the ocean had receded. They'd gone inside. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, then Terra had felt something evil, very, very evil. But the instant it had revealed itself, before she could warn the others, the lights had gone out. They'd been attacked.

...hadn't they?

Something had grabbed her. She had been so certain it was another ambush. It had felt so threatening, so hateful. Was it possible, though, it was just frightened?

Where _were _Celes and Squall?

She dropped her gladius, disgusted with the weight of it, and screamed their names again. She got no reply but her own empty echo and a low, nasty chuckle.

"What did you think?" Kefka asked, his voice suddenly vicious. "That if you hid behind Cosmos's skirt long enough, all that bottled up aggression would flutter off into the atmosphere? No. I tried to tell you. You're a monster. The sooner you accept it, the less it hurts."

That couldn't be the truth. It couldn't be! Terra wanted nothing more than to sit on the floor and stop up her ears. Instead, she ran, yelling Celes's name, then Squall's. Kefka followed her.

"You might as well come back to Chaos," He said. "I don't see that you can get much worse than this!"

Worse than what? Terra picked up speed, from running to flying. Why couldn't she figure out what happened? Where were Squall and Celes? Was it really possible she'd- no! He was lying. He had to be. _He wants me to lose control. I can't lose control. _But she had already, hadn't she? And now she couldn't find her friends, and there was blood everywhere, nowhere more than on her hands...

"I'm normally supportive of tactical retreats, missy, but there's nowhere you can run from yourself."

_I can't lose control. He wants..._

Terra turned in a blur of violet and white, claws and fangs bared, as she hurled wave after wave of light at her old friend, tearing away floor and bloody wall with each pulse.

* * *

><p><em>I should have thought of this<em>, Celes said to herself. She should have realized that the closer they got to the source of the blight, the thicker it would be. It shouldn't have surprised her to find herself surrounded by the fleshy, rotten vines. She should have planned for it. Instead, she'd charged right into the shrine. Now, she was knotted in at every side, even worse than she had been on the Dragon Isles. She'd been separated from Squall and Terra, just as she'd been separated from Kaeli. There was an insistence deep within, urging her to keep going, keep fighting, keep searching until she found a way out. In her head, though, she knew the chances of that dwindled with every fresh bloated vine that crammed itself into her path. How could she have let herself get into this situation?

_Kaeli. Now Terra and Squall._

The despair only fueled her rage. Silverdream caught the bioluminescent light as she hacked the vines; pieces of infected matter flew. She didn't care how many more there were! If she had to carve her way to the Banecore Tree, so be it; the blight and the thing that caused it would die!

Her arm was arrested mid-slice.

What was wrong? Why couldn't she move? A memory came to her, not a lost one but a recent picture of vines catching Kaeli around the arms and hands. It took her a moment to process it. The Witherbane... had hold of her? It did. She could feel it tightening around her skin, cutting off her circulation. Then it wrapped around her feet, her neck.

Silverdream fell from her hand.

It seemed to fall forever. For that, it never hit the floor. The Witherbane lashed out to snatch it mid-air. It coiled around the axe, smothering every bit of light.

"No!" Celes yelled. She pulled at her restraints with all her might. It wasn't enough. She couldn't budge.

_I have to get the axe back_, she thought, even as the blight closed around her. _It can't have all been for nothing._

Was that someone walking through the Witherbane?

It was, and Celes was further surprised when she recognized the red cloak of that warrior of Chaos Squall had fought on Mt. Duergar. What had his name been? Gilgamesh? But this was impossible. The Witherbane had attacked him then, and it was everywhere now. How was he able to move so freely?

He stopped at the lump of vines that swallowed Silverdream, then plunged his fist into it, snapping the blight as easily as kite string. How? How was he doing it? Celes pulled again, but found her restraints held fast as ever. She couldn't watch, helpless, as he carried their only hope back to his master.

That wasn't what he was doing, though. He was wading further into the thicket, slowly but surely towards Celes. Did he plan to add insult to injury, then, by smiting her down with the very weapon she'd sworn to protect?

He held Silverdream out to her.

"Go on. Take it."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Was this some kind of sadistic attempt at humor? His face, what she could see of it, betrayed no hint of a smile.

"I can't."

"You only think you can't."

"How are you passing through the Witherbane unharmed?"

"There is no Witherbane," Gilgamesh said. "It's a trick. You just have to realize it isn't really there, and it'll have no power to hold you." He looked momentarily perplexed. "At least, I think that's what he meant. It sounded kind of complicated to me."

Not real? But it was everywhere! It made so much sense, too.

Only, now that Celes thought about it, she couldn't actually remember the Witherbane attacking. She couldn't remember Squall or Terra fighting and being swallowed. All she could remember was opening the door of the mermaid's village and stepping through it.

She tried again to free her hand. The vines pulled at her, but they gave a little. Encouraged, she yanked harder. They tore like paper.

Gilgamesh offered her Silverdream. Celes took it.

The instant she touched it, the Witherbane was gone. The mermaid's hall was empty except for her and Gilgamesh. A cursed illusion?

"Why?" She asked. "Why did you break the spell?"

"Why?" He stomped. "Because this is not how warriors settle things! I intend that we have a real battle! You and I, with the axe as the prize!"

Celes readied Silverdream as Gilgamesh drew one of his many swords.

"Because," He growled, "What he said about me back there... that isn't real, either!"

* * *

><p>Squall had another advantageous ability. He could move when he was hurting, even if the pain was almost unbearable. Even if he didn't understand where it was coming from.<p>

He couldn't climb out. That much was obvious. He wouldn't wait around in the hope Terra wasn't similarly imprisoned and could levitate him out. That had never been his style. Instead, he resumed work on the grating. He worked on it for hours, cutting, blasting pulling. Eventually, one bar loosened. He wriggled it free.

After that, the others came more easily.

Not that it mattered. Nobody could hold their breath that long. But the chamber below his; was it just a cell, or did it offer him a means of escape?

He perched on the end of it, indecisive. Was he ready to face what he might find under the water?

He held his breath and climbed in.

This was his first hint something was off. That voice below had said the chamber was not deep, and had been able to reach the grating. However, when he felt for the floor with his feet, he got nothing but water. He dove. Still no bottom. He came back up for air, then dove again. This time he found sand-crusted stone beneath his fingers; a good ten feet down.

He swam until he found the border of this new chamber. There were three walls fairly close by. The fourth opened into an underwater corridor. Nowhere did he feel a dead body.

That was when Squall, holding his breath though he may have been, began to smell a rat.

He made one more return for air, then plunged into the corridor.

It was difficult going. When he risked opening his eyes, the salt water stung so badly he closed them again. He had to feel his way through, although it was narrow enough that he didn't have to worry about getting turned around. He did, however, still have to worry about breathing.

He was thinking about turning back when he felt the bottom of the corridor incline slightly. He opened his eyes again, and though it still burned, he also saw light playing above him. He swam for it.

Squall broke the surface of the water with a spray of foam. He inhaled deeply. Where was he?

And what the _hell _was that?

He'd emerged in a grand atrium, arching over his head. It had once been held in place by eight pillars. Four had crumbled. Three remained at work. The final pillar...

When Squall had first landed on this strange world, he'd been baffled by the sorts of magic some of Cosmos's and Chaos's champions were able to weave. Sure, he'd used Guardian Forces back home, he could draw vital energy from monsters, but what he'd encountered here was like the legendary spells of the Sorceresses. It was too unreal, even when it was right in front of him.

It was right in front of him now. The final pillar had been enchanted. Not only could Squall feel the power emanating from it, he could feel despair and anger as well. He could see the runes bubble, morphing from mere pictures into figures like hands and faces with wide-open eyes and gaping mouths.

He crawled out of the pool, onto solid ground.

Now there were hands and arms, reaching for him from the pillar, rubbery skin over bone.

_I guess it isn't friendly. 'Course I guessed that right away._

He was jarred as he thrust the gunblade into the pillar, not just from a thousand molded hands parrying, grabbing him, trying to wrench the weapon from his grasp, but from the energy coursing through him. He pulled the trigger, freeing himself. The screaming intensified so much Squall couldn't hear the lapping water. He flipped, narrowly escaping an outreaching pair of arms. He fired into the pillar again; the whole thing shook.

As with the drain, he kept cutting, refusing to believe his eyes when they told him he was having no effect. _That's just the salt water_. The human bodies beneath the stone writhed.

Then, all at once, the malignant light began to dim. The screaming died down. The pillar, seemingly impervious, exploded.

The figures were gone. It was nothing but stone now, stone and cold, dark runes.

With the destruction of the pillar, the oppressive atmosphere faded. Squall walked away from the heap, gunblade over his shoulder. The jellies on the wall glowed more brightly than they had since the mermaids had died. The curse given life by that calamity had finally been lifted.

* * *

><p>Celes wouldn't say this was the weirdest battle she'd ever fought. That was still the time she was shanghaied from a stage where she'd been impersonating a famous opera star while the love of her life and a giant octopus fought to decide who'd play her love interest for the remainder of the scene. This was catching up, though.<p>

What she'd thought was one sword, in Gilgamesh's hands, split into two. Used to the weight of the battle axe, Celes was able to block both of them with the curve of the blade. That didn't help much, though, when they shifted again, this time into tasseled spears. She had to release him and backflip out of range. Still he kept up, releasing razored boomerangs to follow her. Aero magic? She caught them with her runic blade.

How many weapons did he have? Or was that just one weapon? It was difficult to see in the flurry. It seemed Gilgamesh was trying to overwhelm her with sheer variety.

"You're not bad," She admitted.

"And you! You're amazing! Your blade-work, I mean. Not that it wouldn't also apply to the rest of... woah!" Gilgamesh side-stepped a shard of ice.

"Please pay attention," Celes said.

"Oh, but I'm finished!" He clutched his chest. Celes wondered if he really thought she didn't notice he was casting a protective barrier around himself. "You've outdone me with your skill and your beauty! I think I'd better..."

Celes used her runic blade to catch his next spell (it felt like Haste) and channeled the energy into a barrage of ice crystals. He dodged them deftly, but was clearly shocked.

"Hey! What's the idea, interrupting my bluffing?" Gilgamesh pulled his weapons again, which had now become a pair of single-bladed axes, and attacked.

Celes caught them. They were locked, nearly face-to-face. Or cowl, as it were.

"I _was _bluffing, you know. I wouldn't dream of skipping out on a fight. Okay, I would skip out on a fight, if it were boring me and I didn't have anything to gain by sticking it out. I'm liking this one, though. Ha! Fell for it!"

Gilgamesh leapt into the air and hurled his weapon, now a javelin.

Too fast to dodge, so...

Celes jumped herself, knocking the spear aside. Axes again; she fended off a series of erratic attacks. Erratic, but not ineffective. She returned to the ground, landing on her feet. Gilgamesh followed.

"So," He said, dropping his voice so low, Celes wasn't sure if he were trying to sound menacing, dashing, or sleepy. "It comes to this. A true standstill between true knights. Or at least, it would be if I couldn't do _this!"_

Was the room shrinking? No, Gilgamesh was growing. His cowl tore, leaving loose red thread floating on the currents. He stretched, his head nearly touching the ceiling. Two more pairs of arms unfolded from beneath the tattered red cloth. He stomped again, and the ground shook.

He drew something gleaming from his back. What kind of sword was that? With its barbed cross guard and polished steel blade, it looked positively wicked. He brought it down upon her with all the speed and strength of his altered form, his extra limbs. She threw an ice shield around her- he barreled right through it-

The sword's edge bounced against her harmlessly with all the force of a stuffed theater prop. It didn't even sting.

"WHAAAAT?" Gilgamesh looked at the thing in his hands. "No, this isn't right at all! Do over! I want a do over!"

He jumped up and down, punched a jelly, shook out his hand as it stung his knuckles, then fled down the hall, leaving Celes holding Silverdream in astonishment.

Her opponent was retreating. Celes knew, in the back of her mind, that if he were here, so were Exdeath and Kefka. She knew Squall and Terra might be facing them at this very moment, and worse, that they might still be incapacitated. She knew she had to find them as soon as she could.

It still took her a moment to scrape her jaw off the floor. _No, not as weird as the octopus_, she thought_, but if I'd been in a ball gown, it might have been_.

* * *

><p>Celes found Squall, soaked to the bone, a few rooms ahead of her.<p>

"I think it's another barrier spell," she said.

"I found it. I took care of it." Squall spoke so casually. Celes thought the truth had probably been more complex.

"Have you seen Terra?" Celes asked. He shook his head.

"We have to find her! They're here! Chaos's forces are here!"

* * *

><p>Terra forgot where she was. She forgot who she was. As she lashed out, she drew blood. As she summoned storms, fires, and shadow, the shrine was reduced to sand around her. She tore through the roof. The stars above glowed weakly. Still she fought... and she never forgot who she was fighting.<p>

He caught her full-on with a blast of sickly light. She plummeted from the sky. She caught him and came away with a handful of feathers from his wings. He was thrown, and they both crashed. The impact cracked the floor.

Yet the fight wasn't over. Kefka snatched a fistful of her white hair, pulling her into an awkward position. She caught him under his chin. It wasn't enough; he slammed her head into the stone, cracking it again. She was dizzy, sick, sure the floor would give out beneath them, and not so sure she could still fly.

Kefka stood. Terra tried to. No good. Her head was swimming.

"Nap time?" He was shaking. He wasn't holding up as well as he wanted her to think. "But, mama! I ain't tired!"

_Get up, Terra!_ It wasn't a conscious decision so much as an instinct.

He summoned the light once more. Terra fought harder to rise. She could at least meet this standing, couldn't she?

"Look on the bright side! You won't remember a bit of this the next time you wake up." He growled. "In Chaos's court, where you belong."

Before Kefka could fire, he doubled over. Something threw him into what little was left of the wall, tearing that free, too. The spell forming in his hands flickered, then vanished...

...absorbed into the upraised axe of Celes Chere.

"Remember that?" She asked icily, the energy crackling in her steel and arms. "I thought you might want it back!"

Like an athlete throwing a discus, she released the putrescent light from the axe, turning the debris to ash.

Amazingly, he was still able to catch the edge of the floor and pull himself back up. Bleeding from the gashes Terra had put on him, crackling with the magic Celes had hurled at him, Kefka was still trying to fight. He raised his hands.

Which was when Squall smacked him with the butt of the gunblade. That finally sent him down. Kefka fell out of his Trance in a burst of light like balloons and confetti.

"Celes!" Terra said. "Squall! You're alive!"

Then Terra also lost consciousness.

* * *

><p>"Is she still sleeping?"<p>

Squall stoked the fire. In an alcove of the Shrine, they'd found a place well-hidden enough that they could keep a small blaze. Now Squall's heavy jacket hung beside it while waves crashed outside. Squall looked over his shoulder. Terra's eyes were still closed, in spite of Celes's best healing efforts. There was nothing they could do but wait.

"It looks like your coat is dry," Celes said.

Squall reached for it. "Do you remember the bandanna you showed me?"

Celes removed it from her purse. The question was well-timed. Physically and mentally drained, she was glad for the excuse to look at it again, to feel the sense of calm it brought.

Squall reached into his jacket's pocket and pulled out a silver chain. Dangling at the end was a small ring. It glinted as it swung in the firelight.

"Ever since I woke up here," He said, "Even before I could remember my own name, I remembered her voice, promising me she'd be waiting. Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I could see her hands, reaching. But that's it."

He tucked the necklace back in his pocket.

"That's how I figured out it wasn't real. I only remembered the voice and the hands, so that was all the curse could show me." He poked the fire again. "We must be getting close."

The fire crackled. Celes sat, enjoying the warmth, the silence, and the first decent rest she'd had in days. The sun was beginning to rise outside.

Then she heard speaking.

Squall must have, too. "Do we need to douse the fire?"

"It doesn't sound like the minions of Chaos." Celes crawled forward. Now that she thought about it, it didn't even sound like a voice. It was more like the static that came over the speakers on her Magitek armor.

Furthermore, it was coming from Terra's folded hands.

Carefully, so not to wake her, Celes pried Terra's hands apart. Clenched between them was a pulpy mutilated flower. She picked it up and tried to straighten out its mangled petals.

"What is that?" Squall asked.

"Something she pulled off Kefka while they were fighting?" Celes grimaced. "He was never the sort to carry around flowers. I wonder what's so special about this one."

Squall leaned in to listen as the cackling voice emerged once more from the bloom.

_-don't see where we could possibly be going at this time of night-_

Squall turned the flower over, then looked at Celes. "Is that Xande?"

* * *

><p>Kefka came to with a terrible headache. By that, he meant Gilgamesh was standing over him for the second time in one day, shaking him by the shoulder.<p>

"Lemme tell you the important lesson I learned," Kefka said, climbing to a half-standing position by clawing his way up the rubble. "Unfair fights are only okay if they're stacked to _my_ advantage."

He was sure he stumbled as he and Gilgamesh walked to the rendezvous.

"So they got away from us. Big deal. I'm sure Exdeath cut 'em off." Kefka rubbed his head. "I, uh... okay, maybe not."

In his time as a warrior of Chaos, Kefka had only seen Exdeath without his armor maybe once or twice, and never had he gotten such a very good look. When he found Exdeath slumped against a pillar, the Moore Tree had pulled off his helmet and most of his breastplate. He was in terrible shape. His black hair hung over his chalky face, his eyes half-opened and turned to the floor. But the creepiest thing had to be the Witherbane. It had crawled from his arm to his chest and spread like mold through cheese. Tendrils of the stuff crept up his jawbone.

"Here. I'm here. You're late. Too late. I taste the blood of this world. Soon it will all be mine... you're too late... only give me... _give me_..."

Gilgamesh dashed to the rescue, pulling his oppressive, cruel master to his feet with such genuine concern Kefka was stunned. Beneath his cowl, his face was a mask of terror.

"Boss? Boss! Speak to me! Not in that freaky monster voice. Say something from you!"

Exdeath turned his head at the sound of Gilgamesh's voice. "Did you find the Geomancer's Axe? I must have Silverdream."

He slumped.

Kefka tilted his head as Exdeath allowed Gilgamesh to throw his infected arm over his shoulders and lead him through the ruins.

"Gilgamesh, old buddy," Kefka said, "Between you and me, I think the salad's gone bad."


	7. Visions of Foresta: Geomancer

Visions of Foresta: Geomancer

Kaeli watched the purple-splotched bean sprout tilt slowly back and forth in a tiny breeze. She tried to think of it growing, flowering. She thought of the sunshine, of the rain, of the loam below. Then her father's face crept into her mind, and with it, visions of wandering the garden calling his name, of her mother doubled over the kitchen counter sobbing.

The sprout didn't respond to such images. It wasn't harmed by her feelings, but it remained a seedling, and the purple splotches remained.

Master Durante clicked his tongue, pacing the greenhouse with his satyr's hooves. "Kaeli. You have potential, more than anyone I've ever seen. But you'll never realize it if you keep smothering it in all that anger."

"The thing in the forest isn't helping!" Kaeli yelled, standing from the sprout and deliberately turning her back on it. "Nothing's been growing right since it got here. As far as we know, it could be the reason everything's diseased. You said we'd get rid of it."

"This blight has been in the forest since its birth. That creature has nothing to do with it." Beneath his shaggy, salt-and-pepper goatee, Durante smiled. He patted her head, then tapped the bean sprout. The purple splotches vanished beneath his fingers, returning to healthy green. "We will be rid of it. Not while you're distracted, though; that would be folly. You must learn patience as well as calm."

"Patience?" Kaeli said. "You sure don't have any room to talk about patience! For months now, you've been cutting council meetings short, hurrying through lessons, just so you can rush up to Focus Tower! What's so great about those old ruins, anyway?"

The satyr started. "You've... seen where I've gone?"

"I followed you the whole way last time you went! You were so obsessed with getting there, you didn't even see me!"

"Did you go inside?"

Kaeli's fury subsided, replaced with humiliation. "No, I... I got frightened."

Durante sighed, relieved. He knelt and took her by the shoulders. "That's good. You were right to be frightened. Now, listen to me; you mustn't _ever _go inside, not unless you're with me or your mother."

"But it's the only way to Aquaria."

"I know, and that's why if you're with a grown-up, it's all right. But what I'm going to tell you now, I've never told anyone, and you must not repeat it. I think there's something hidden in the tower. I believe the ruins extend much lower into the earth, and that there may be treasure there. Not riches. Magic. And it may be very, very dangerous."

"Like the monster in the forest?"

"Perhaps worse," Master Durante said. "The thing we find haunting our forests these days, while it shows a definite inclination towards mischief, is unformed. It has yet to decide whether it wants to be bad or good. The magic beneath Focus Tower, if it indeed exists, has had eons to perfect its malice. So you must never, ever go inside without permission. Do I have your word?"

"I promise," Kaeli said.

When her lesson was ended and her sprout healed but still in its infancy, Kaeli ambled slowly down the dirt road. She was tempted to pass by the forest and see if she could catch another glimpse of that new monster, but responsibility won out, and she started for home. She was halfway there when she heard her name.

Captain Mac was strolling along the street, carrying two parcels wrapped neatly in plain white paper, tied with string.

She dashed to him. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to pay your mum back for all her help. I saw you studying, and thought I'd stop to give you this."

He handed Kaeli the largest of the packages.

"I got you a present, too. You did get that fiend off my back, after all!"

Mac continued on his way, and Kaeli unwrapped the gift. Inside was a giant conch shell, eggy yellow on the outside, shimmering gold and violet inside. Wrapped around it was a note.

_When I'm feeling down, nothing chases the blues away like listening to the waves crashing on the shore. With this shell, you'll be able to hear the sea, too, no matter where you are. Just put it to your ear. - Mac_

Kaeli did. She was stunned by the rush of water. Slowly the gloom of the morning lifted. He was right; the waves did make her feel better.

Kaeli was too polite to ask her mother what Captain Mac had brought her, but she noticed a few days later that her mother was wearing a new silver-and-diamond necklace, and that she occasionally stopped work to read a much longer letter.


	8. Chapter 5: The Scream of the Hydra

Chapter Five: The Scream of the Hydra

"I don't see where we could possibly be going at this time of night," Xande said.

Astos's hair and elaborate cape trailed ahead of Xande. Around them, the Gate had been wiped clean. Once this place had been recognizable as a replica of Chaos's Shrine. Now, the stairs had been worn to a shapeless heap. There weren't even threads left to mark where the red carpet had been. The murals, once depicting Chaos's Archfiends, the tentacled Kraken, the serpent Malilith, the multi-headed Tiamat, the Necromancer Lich, were worn smooth as unused canvas. Only unused canvas had potential. This was an uninviting blank.

"We have reason to believe this location has become unsafe," Astos said. "We have another place, one more secure: The Citadel of Trials, deep in the Land of Discord. Did you, perchance, encounter it in your reading?"

"An ancient rite of passage," Xande said. "Kings, sages, and captains of armies were required to search its labyrinthine insides for proof they were fit for their posts. Speaking of my reading, we will be bringing my books?"

Astos hesitated. "Speed is of the essence. It is my duty to see you delivered to the Citadel safely. I'll send my warriors to retrieve your library later. You needn't worry; I doubt our enemies will be interested in plundering your dusty old scraps."

Xande stopped. He had to keep Astos in the lead without lingering so far behind the elf-king became suspicious, but he felt real anger kindling. "Those 'dusty old scraps' contain the journals of my master, Noah. Personal correspondence from my fellow apprentices, Doga and the lady Unei. Do you mean to say you could conjure them out of thin air, were they to be lost?"

Astos's laugh was full of scorn. "The teachings of a master who sentenced you to the slow execution of human mortality? Letters from the friends who sent a mere boy to speed up the process? Far be it from me to judge you, Xande! If those are the things you value, those are the things our master will grant you for your service. But I think you forget, in your sentimental nostalgia, he's capable of giving you so much more. Wealth. Power."

"Your ideas of wealth and power differ from mine, elf," Xande said.

Astos clearly wanted to continue this discussion. He looked like he wanted to escalate it into a fight proper; it was written all over his sour face. He didn't have the time for that, though, and Xande watched him struggle with it.

"Indeed, they do. Perhaps we can compare philosophies at our destination. Now, we must be going."

Astos stewed the whole way to the Gate's open mouth. Personally, Xande was enjoying himself, in a morbid sort of way.

He knew, however, when the delicate pattern of the gate stretched before him, he had to stay alert. This would require perfect timing. Xande could feel his hands sweat as he reached for his staff. His heart beat faster.

How obnoxiously mortal.

Astos remained a step ahead. Xande attempted to look as if he were catching up without closing any significant distance. The sticky, smoky presence of the Gate closed around them.

In an instant, it was over. Astos stepped through the Gate and Xande, still a pace behind him, remained in bent space.

Xande stopped. He traced an outline in the Gate with his staff, one that left brief traces like fireworks, then he struck the ground.

"Do you know, Astos," Xande said, "I've changed my mind. I couldn't possibly leave without that poor broom! He'd be lost without me, I'm sure of it."

Astos wheeled around, close to losing his temper and trying not to show it. "Perhaps I failed to stress the danger. We must leave. The minions of Cosmos could be here any minute!"

"They already were here, and you were never the wiser. The place hasn't fallen down around us since the visit."

"Then perhaps I wasn't clear enough that _this is not voluntary_. You will travel with me to the Citadel of Trials, where you will welcome the Dark King."

"With my own blood, correct? You must think I'm a fool! I've known what you were about from the start. If you're so determined I'm to be the creature's avatar, don't expect my compliance; come in here and get me."

Astos tried. He tried to reach for his sword. He tried to work magic. He couldn't do any of these things because he was frozen in place, staring at his scant reflection in the rippling surface of the Gate.

"You must be wondering," Xande said, "Why you're having so much trouble moving. Perhaps if you'd spent more time among my 'dusty old scraps,' you'd have heard of the Curse of the Five Wyrms. It's unique to my world. Normally, it's deadly unless lifted by a person who cares about you so much they're willing to take your place, but I regret to say you won't be burdened with such an impossible task. You see, it's a particular sort of barrier. It can only be anchored to a flat surface, like crystal, or a mirror, or one of these fascinating Gates. Therefore, the curse will be broken and you will be freed..."

Xande marched into the empty recesses of the false Chaos Shrine.

"...as soon as I've closed the Gate and sealed myself inside, away from your reach and the reach of your worthless so-called 'king.'"

"So you think," Astos said. "You still don't get it. _He_ will catch you and drag you to the Citadel of Trials before you can find the Sigil. You don't know where it is, do you? I thought not. You'll never know. The sacrifice will still take place, and any shreds of your spirit that remain after its completion will suffer eternal torment for this betrayal. I would have made the fusion painless, but you... you, who once stopped the world to escape death... in the end, you'll be _begging_ for it."

Xande left Astos to his threats, but that one was not empty.

He had been inside the Sanctuary enough to suspect what they kept beneath it. He'd felt the heat of unchecked flame, seen rising steam, choked on the sulfur. The Dark King, like any monarch, had his favored attendants. In books, they were called the Vile Four.

One hid in the Sanctuary beneath Matoya's cave.

* * *

><p>On this world, as it had been on his own, Xande ran a brutal race with time.<p>

He opened the door to his quarters with such force it buckled. Foolish, he knew, to return here. The elven warriors would be after him, and this was the first place they'd look. Worse than foolish, though, not to. Not only had he failed to find the Gate's Chaos Sigil, the only means of shutting it, he had yet to determine which of the Vile Four had taken residence here. He'd need his bestiary for that; confronting such a beast blind would spell his doom.

Besides, he couldn't leave the broom to fend for itself.

"Tiurf neddir-mrow ekiltor lliwtenalp siht," the broom said as he tucked it under his arm.

"Yes, I'm sure." Xande seized a leather satchel from beneath the broom's cushion, then dumped his oldest bestiaries into it without paying his usual attention to order. In spite of their age, they were in decent condition; more effort had been put into preserving them than reading them. They could stand a little rough treatment now.

When Xande concentrated, he tuned out white noise around him. This was a good habit to have during his apprenticeship, but a horrible one when being hunted by dark elves and who-knew-what-else hellbent on your capture and eventual gruesome murder. When the whispering became loud enough that he noticed it, he cursed. How could he have let them sneak up on him? How had they gotten here so quickly?

_-Can't worry about the cave this close to the Banecore Tree.-_

_-Who knows what'll be guarding that? The Witherbane might have been an illusion last time, but-_

Those weren't Astos's troops talking. They sounded more like...

"Squall?" Xande asked. "Celes?"

Was his mind playing tricks on him?

_-I hear it again! That _is_ Xande!-_

"I, uh, hear you, too." It felt strange talking to disembodied voices, but no stranger than talking to a sentient broom, he supposed.

_-The flowers. You called them moon-flowers. Are there any nearby?-_

"They're still everywhere." Xande said, picking the nearest.

The closer it got, the clearer their voices became.

He recognized Celes. "We're in the dead center of the mermaid's shrine, climbing a flight of stairs. No sign of the Banecore Tree yet, but we must be getting close. The jellies on the walls are dying."

"Then you've heard my predicament?" Xande asked.

"Some of it."

"I had a plan, but they gathered they energy they needed before I could set it up properly." Xande took another book, this one frosty with enchantment, and stuffed it into his satchel. "It'll still work if I can find the Chaos Sigil. All the power of space-bending is contained in that. Should I destroy it, the Gate will close. They'll have to put off the sacrifice until they can get it opened again, or find a replacement."

There was rough static, like crumpling paper, and a hushed _-no, you're still-. _Then, a third voice.

It was Terra. "Xande, did you say you needed to find the Chaos Sigil? When Gates open in the Land of Harmony, sometimes the moogles fly into them by mistake and get lost. I go inside to pull them out, and I always close them behind me. I've been in enough to know the Chaos Sigil is always on the bottommost floor. How many floors are there in Matoya's Cave?"

He calculated in his head on his way through his secret passage; as far as he knew, neither the elves nor the Wending-Worms had found it. "I'm four down now," He said, "And I know for certain there are three more between me and the Sanctuary. I harbor deep suspicions there's another beneath that."

"That's where it'll be, then," Terra said.

Xande chuckled as he opened the door to the Magitek Factory's balcony. No, technically it didn't lead to the Sanctuary, but he could carve his own path. "Much as I appreciate your help, that is precisely what I didn't want to hear. Do you remember, I told you there was something down there? I'd have rather avoided it. Now, I suppose I'll have to fight it."

Xande vaulted the balcony and landed below. The broom squirmed slightly.

"What is it?"

Checking to see if he were alone, Xande hid behind a pedestal that had once contained an Esper-jar. He pulled out the old bestiary and flipped through it.

"Let me see. Intense heat... smells like sulfur... burrows underground... an element-thief that doesn't corrupt fire, as an Archfiend would, but devours and destroys it..."

He stopped turning pages when he encountered an old drawing. It was flaking ink on paper, colorless and exaggerated. It depicted the bottom half of a man sticking out from between the snarling jowls of a fiendish head while, like a helix, another head twined around it to consume a cowering woman between its claws.

"Yes, I believe this is the culprit: The Dualhead Hydra."

* * *

><p>Airy light fluttered in thermal spirals, dancing through leaves glowing green beneath the sun. Iridescent insects skittered through dappled shadow beneath ferns. A bright caterpillar chewed methodically on a stick. Chiaroscuro was an element in any forest, but in Moore, it was tangible. The mystic creatures that lived there, the faeries hiding in the trees, the feathered bugs, were pure light. The plants themselves teemed with magic that carved dark shadows on the forest floor, portals to some otherworld. It was difficult, even for the inhabitants of the adjacent village, to tell the solid from the ephemeral.<p>

It made the forest great cover for highwaymen.

"I say we give this one a pass," Enkidu whispered, stretching. His chameleon skin blended perfectly with the foliage, so he could get away with this motion. That didn't excuse the talking.

Gilgamesh motioned for silence. It was true, the man below was alone, and that was unusual. With his heavy robes and choppy black hair, he looked the same as any other would-be enchanter digging through the forest for alchemic ingredients or rare creatures. Why, then, didn't he have the usual bodyguards? Was he confident or just an idiot?

Why was he carrying such a magnificent weapon?

"It's just one guy," Enkidu said. "How much could he have? I tell you, this isn't worth our time."

"That sword. Just look at it!"

"Typical dress sword. It'd probably snap in half if he tried to use it on anything."

"I wanna find out!" Gilgamesh said, and lit off through the trees.

Enkidu sighed, spreading his leather wings as he lighted from his perch. "Don't forget one of us is doing this for the money."

Gilgamesh thought it would be easy. He and Enkidu had concocted quite the racket, and it usually went like this: they jumped out of the trees at rich forest travelers, gnashing fangs, waving wings and extra limbs, as bombastic and over-the-top as they could stand to be without bursting into laughter. The travelers, marinated since childhood in stories of forest denizens snatching humans away for any nefarious purpose they could imagine, ran away screaming, leaving their belongings for Enkidu and Gilgamesh to claim. It couldn't have been more perfect or more effortless.

Although... Gilgamesh would have felt funny admitting it to Enkidu, but he _hated _how effortless it was. He remembered an old wizard who'd passed through with an armored man he'd later discovered was a knight of Bal. That brave knight hadn't fled. He'd fought to the last. Even when Enkidu dropped from the sky and tore the sword from his hands, he'd fought with his fists. If the old wizard hadn't grabbed him and teleported the both of them to safety, Gilgamesh was sure he'd have fought to the death.

Fought to the death. How romantic!

Gilgamesh had been using that knight's sword ever since. He and Enkidu used to sell the weapons they found; now he collected them.

He wasn't expecting that kind of fight from a single guy, especially not such a wimpy-looking one. He charged, the knight's sword drawn, full-on monster mode...

Only, the man was not there.

"Huh?" Gilgamesh said.

"Behind you!"

Gilgamesh heard Enkidu's warning, but he didn't have time to act on it. The next thing he knew he was on his back in a pile of dead leaves, staring at branches and a tweeting bird overhead. That guy threw him? This far? But Gilgamesh was so heavy, and the man, while not small by any means, only human. _Wait, what if he wasn't?_ That would explain it.

"Fall back!" Enkidu said, reaching the same conclusion. "You know the rules! We don't shake down our own kind!" And just in case Gilgamesh, having known Enkidu from infancy, might have mistaken this for a sentiment as worthy as loyalty, added, "_Our _kind fight back!"

Gilgamesh brushed the leaves away angrily. "That's your rule! And it's dumb!"

The robed man was pointedly ignoring him. After the way his first charge worked out, he knew he needed to be more cautious. Yet his opponent wasn't even drawing his sword!

He didn't, either; not until Gilgamesh was inches away from him. Then he pulled it, struck him, and re-sheathed it in one fluid circle.

_Did he have to knock me back into the _same _pile? That's just mean._

Enkidu flew, looking for an opening to join the fight. The man didn't seem to care. His eyes were fixed on Gilgamesh.

"How painful it must be," He said.

Gilgamesh pried himself out of the leaves a second time. "Yeah, my shoulder's a bit out of place, but... hey! What are you talking about? This is nothing! It didn't even hurt a little! I'm right as OUCH!"

"That isn't what I meant," He said, his low, rough voice hypnotic. "To want something so desperately and not even know what it is! How painful that must be."

Without considering the possibility that Enkidu could swoop down any minute, or that Gilgamesh would take another shot at him, the man walked carelessly and slowly between them. He stopped to say one more thing.

"My castle is to the east of the Big Bridge. Perhaps you'll find what you're searching for there. Feel free to visit."

"What's your name?" Gilgamesh asked.

"I am Exdeath," He said. Then, Exdeath vanished.

When Enkidu was certain he was gone, he clamped Gilgamesh on the shoulder (the out-of-place shoulder. Ouch again). "I'm only going to ask you one more time: let's go home and pretend this never happened."

* * *

><p><em>Enkidu, why didn't I listen to you?<em>

The Exdeath Gilgamesh met in the forest was invincible. He knew, the way a schoolboy knew boring facts and dates he'd memorized from a weathered textbook, that Exdeath had once suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Braves of Dawn. He'd even heard the claims (made by the Braves' allies) that Exdeath's behavior after the fact had been less than gracious. It was hard to believe that. His nonchalant demeanor, waiting for attacks only to bat them away like flies, was just so... so... _cool!_

Where had _that _Exdeath gone?

As Gilgamesh, Exdeath, and Kefka walked the dimming halls of the Sunken Shrine, splashing through salty pools and passing squishy jellies, the Moore Tree tried to project strength. When he'd finally begun to make sense again, berating Gilgamesh for his failure to defeat Celes and steal Silverdream was on the top of his to-do list (he'd tried to berate Gilgamesh _and_ Kefka, but Kefka had stopped listening and wandered away to stomp in a puddle a minute into the lecture). The second item on his to-do list was, apparently, to fall on his face. That was when Gilgamesh insisted they stop to rest.

Gilgamesh fumbled through his antidotes, wondering if any of them would ease Exdeath's sickness. Exdeath, still unmasked, stared down the hall without seeing it, like he were looking right through the fabric of space and time, straight into the Void. Gilgamesh unstopped a bottle of the most broad-based tonic he had and knelt by Exdeath.

Who grabbed his wrist with crushing force.

"Not here," He said. "Gilgamesh, not here. I want to go home. Enough with the fragments and the lies. I want the true Kuzar. Drakenvale. I'd even be relieved to see that damned turtle! And I'm sure he'd be relieved to see me in my current state."

Gilgamesh had to admit he was just the tiniest bit revolted by this display. He shook his hand free. "So we'll go back one of these cycles. Shinryu can only swallow us and puke us back up so many times before we figure something out. If I'd known you felt that way about it, I'd have complained more about your banishing me."

Exdeath snapped out of his reverie and gave Gilgamesh a scathing look. "The thing that has me in such a firm grip is taking me somewhere from which not even Shinryu will be able to recall me."

"Wait, what?" Gilgamesh had been expecting some sarcastic remark, loaded with pretension and polysyllabic words nobody who didn't have way too much time on their hands bothered learning. Instead, he heard something that seemed impossible. Exdeath, the invincible, dying... _for real?_

"Indeed. I'm not going into stasis until the next cycle. I am not even, bitter as it is to say it, going to the Void. Like all touched by the Witherbane, I'm becoming a part of that _thing_. Even now, there are times I can't entirely tell my own mind from his. When I come back from those abominable interludes, I fear."

Exdeath lay his head back against the wall. Gilgamesh couldn't move. He didn't know what he was feeling. It was sort of like fear, sort of like disbelief, sort of like he'd just been told the sky had never been blue.

"Take me back."

"Drink this." Gilgamesh felt stupid saying that, but he didn't know what else to say. He pressed the antidote into Exdeath's hands.

He didn't drink it, though. He read the bottle. "This comes from Karnak."

That stirred another, more recent memory. "Hey, boss? Kefka said something back there. Something about Karnak. Tycoon."

"Wretched, ghastly places. How I miss them."

_So why'd you try to chuck them all into the Void?_ "When you were buried on Bartz's world, what happened?"

"What happened? Surely you've heard!" Exdeath snorted and waved his free hand. "The Braves of Dawn bound me and buried me alive on that backwater half-world. Scattered my consciousness between the four crystals. As if that would be the end of it! Those crystals didn't exist in a vacuum. With so many people and creatures around them, it was a simple enough matter to find someone or something weak enough or desperate enough to control. They thought I would be stranded there forever, but I broke those crystals to pieces and escaped in a matter of years. They couldn't hold me. Moore forest couldn't hold me. The Rift itself couldn't hold me, and you... _you_..."

Gilgamesh didn't think he was the 'you' Exdeath meant.

"Should you succeed in this endeavor, I promise you, I _will_ find a way to make you regret it. I am the master of the Void. You shall never suppress my will. No one has."

Exdeath threw the antidote back. Gilgamesh couldn't believe it. Little as the medicine helped, obvious as his agony was, Exdeath was standing.

"Let's continue," He said. "I'm feeling much stronger."

So maybe the sky wasn't blue. Maybe it was more of a turquoise. And maybe Exdeath wasn't exactly the noble monarch Gilgamesh had dreamed about defending. He was still vowing to fight to the last, and what's more, he was someone in trouble; _real _trouble, it sounded like. What sort of hero would Gilgamesh be if he let the Dark King consume him? "I won't fail again. That axe'll be ours. If I can mug you, I can mug anybody! Why'd I ever do that, anyway?"

What followed sounded suspiciously like a slap to the head. "A better question might be, why didn't you ever _stop?"_

* * *

><p>The elves scattered as Xande summoned lightning, meteors; anything to keep them at bay. Masses fell at the end of his staff. He was used to the Sanctuary being crowded. The stone amphitheater was ringed with rows of benches, and normally, they were full. He wasn't as used to every sword there being turned against him.<p>

The heat was stifling. Waves rose from the sand scattered below, rippling the air like water. It was difficult to breathe, especially with the crowding. He did what he could to ease it; his staff whipped, throwing a trio of warriors headfirst over a pew and into the sand. He barely had time to block the swords at his left; they hit hard, and it shook him. Xande fired lightning at them to finish the job.

He soared over the remaining steps, turning to release whirlwinds at those who followed him. Downward, Terra said. But Xande had never been below the Sanctuary. How would he get there? He didn't see any doors, any stairs. Did they expect him to dig through the floor?

_I can speed that up, I think._

Xande brought his staff down and the ground rumbled. The elves were thrown from their feet. Something cracked loudly enough to shake the walls, and then, the sand began to flow like the innards of an hourglass. The few elves who'd stood their ground retreated. Xande charged straight into the breach.

He was a its edge when it emerged, slimy and gray, dust pouring from its body like draining water. It reared, opening its wide mouth in a scream. Then, beside it, two more identical creatures emerged from below.

_Wending-Worms!_

Acid dripped from their mouths as they descended in a braided mass. He wished their size would slow them down, but they were as lithe as they were titanic; one caught him in the side with a giant tooth as it plunged back into the sand. He healed the cut, but the burn of the poison stayed with him.

When the next worm attacked, Xande jumped, landed on its head, ran the length of its body. He jumped again, and just in time. A second worm rocketed out of the sand and snapped right where he'd been standing. He summoned the meteors again. The worms were not impressed.

"Something has to affect these things!"

"Sevles meht etibht eet monev," The broom said, stuffy, inside his satchel.

Xande touched his burning arm. "You may have a point there, no pun intended, but I'll have you know I'm not looking forward to this."

The worms writhed over the exposed foundation, over the fallen elves, over each other. They were confused. That was good. He'd need the distraction to get close to them.

_Am I really going to run straight at a Wending-Worm?_

He did. The next worm that lowered its smooth, tubelike non-head with its open vacuum of a mouth, he charged.

The teeth inside that cavernous mouth dripped. The worm plummeted. Waiting was hell, even for that fraction of a second. He had to steel himself to watch its approach calmly. _Wish I'd had time to get my hands on some of that black liquid crystal. Then I wouldn't have to bother with this._

Xande hurled his staff and knocked out one of the worm's teeth.

He flattened himself to the ground, letting the worm sail over his head, and in the same motion snatched the broken tooth. It trundled along its path; it had gathered too much momentum to stop effectively.

Let its own motion be its undoing. He dug the poisoned tooth into the worm's side. Slime and ropey pink burst from the wound, yet the worm did not slow down. The and, by this time, was gone; it left a bloody trail across the bare foundation as it twisted, working its way back to him.

It was broadsided by one of the other worms, which clamped its mouth onto the wound and tore.

Xande still had to worry about the third one. There it was, slithering his way. He jammed his staff in its mouth, preventing it from clamping down on him, then fired the most powerful lightning spell at his disposal right down its throat. That didn't stop it, but it did give Xande room to jam the broken tooth into its pink maw.

Meanwhile, the first worm he'd cut had retaliated, wrapping itself around the other and latching onto it just as firmly. They flopped over, and the third was engulfed in their slimy mass.

Xande climbed back on the stone benches as the worms fought one another. He took cover. Flesh, innards, and corrosive slime flew as they tore at each other, taking lamprey-chunks out with every new bite. Together, they rolled through the breach in the foundation.

Xande approached the gap cautiously. He looked down. At the bottom, the three Wending-Worms lay in a soupy, immobile pile among the lost sand. A worm's tail still lay beside him.

"Xande? What happened?"

He pulled the flower out of his satchel. It sounded like Celes. "I'm still breathing and I'm not captured."

"That's not what I asked."

Xande looked from the edge of the broken floor to the heaped sand below... and the dead Wending-Worm dangling the length of the drop.

"I was stumped for a moment," He said, "But I think I've found a way down."

He tucked the flower back in his bag, next to the broom and his books, and climbed down the worm's corpse.

* * *

><p>Sand piled in smooth heaps. A few grains tumbled down the sides. Beneath them was a solid, shining circle of hardened lava. Above it was a geodesic dome, constructed of red bars and fiery orange panels. On the bars, birds roosted. They were little more than beaked faces with wings, watching unblinkingly as Xande passed. Their glinty yellow owl-stares seemed to be challenging him; they could attack any time they wanted, they said; they only chose not to.<p>

It hurt enough when he dropped from the worm to the sand. Though it had all the appearance of it- smoke and sulfur- this was not a natural heat. He cast a weak ice spell; it did nothing to sooth the pain. He'd have to keep going; he was close. He was closer than, he now admitted to himself, he'd expected to get. There, beyond a misshapen lake of lava, was an ebony winged statue. The Chaos Sigil! That was what kept the Gate opened. No need to be formal about smashing it. He'd just blast it with a meteor and be done with it. He'd have to get in range to do that, though.

Approaching the lava nauseated him. Xande wasn't certain what was wrong. He knew excessive heat could muddy the mind and stomach- _distressingly mortal_- but this was nothing like that. It felt like unseen fingers were reaching inside him and twisting things, that voices were crawling into his head and shouting so much nonsense he couldn't pick anything out.

A bubble broke the smooth surface of the lava pool. Another followed, then a third; increasing in speed and number until the molten stone looked to be boiling. The wings emerged first, each wide enough to scrape the top of the lava dome. The birds flew away. Then, one after another, the heads rose. Then a corpulent body and muscled talons.

"I hear something," Terra said, through the flower.

"I think I found the hydra."

Xande had seen dragons. He'd kept dragons. None of them had this thing's perfectly-round, seemingly opaque gold eyes, its cow-skulled faces. It hissed as it opened its mouths, speaking in some sibilant language, echoing as one head lagged slightly after the other. It was all he could do not to cover his ears. He didn't have to understand it to know he didn't want to hear it. The birds flew around it, and him; he swatted at them instinctively before he could think clearly enough to remember he had spells for swarming enemies.

He reduced the flame-birds to vapor with an ice shield, and then one of the Dualhead Hyrda's claws rose from the lava, clamping down on the edge of the dome. The other followed. It loped towards him, leaning to one side like a wounded hyena.

Xande dodged; blocked. The thing tossed lava as it moved. Fire erupted from its mouth and he drew his enchanted book from his satchel, absorbed it into the frosty pages. One head snapped at him and the other snaked towards his feet. Its arms grabbed at him. The whole time it was hissing in that infernal tongue. Xande could almost make out words.

_If I wanted you dead, you would be._

Xande experimentally tried to freeze it. The spell simmered away before even hitting the running creature. He fended it off with his staff; it was all he could do to keep those heads at bay. Time again. He didn't even have enough to think.

The next voice he heard was Squall's.

"Don't waste time attacking it! Put it to sleep!"

"It's impervious to my magic!"

"With your staff! Enchant the staff!"

It was hard to concentrate. Xande was not in the best position to think about rest, let alone summon it to him. The thing's incessant hissing made it even worse. The broom shifted. Xande tried to think of being in his library. Tried to think, even, of his solitary vigil in the crystal tower, which had been as dull as it had been depressing.

The staff flared.

The hydra attacked, both heads snarling.

Xande swung the staff. It connected with both, one after the other.

At first, he didn't think it had worked. The Dualhead Hydra was still on its feet. Yet it began to sway. It stumbled one way, then another. Then it staggered back to the pool.

At least, that's what it was trying to do.

It missed. The Dualhead Hydra, with a roar, collapsed right onto the Chaos Sigil. The ebony wings impaled the creature through its chest, the eye of one head, the neck of another, its tail.

Then the Sigil crumbled, and the dead dragon crashed to the floor of the lava dome.

* * *

><p>Celes, Squall, and Terra stood before it.<p>

They had climbed what seemed like countless winding stairs, and now, they were before a blood-red Gate. Coiled around its supports was thick, thorny Witherbane. It weaved in the air like snakes' tongues. It covered the ground. The Banecore Tree, if it was anywhere, was beyond this Gate.

"It's dead?" Squall was saying into the Whisperweed.

"How did you know that would work?"

He shrugged, as if Xande could see the motion. "An optional test at the Garden. You could fight a dragon for bonus credit. You didn't have to beat it, because pretty much nobody could; at least, until me and my instructor came up with a plan to Junction a Sleep para-spell to my gunblade. It was mostly Ms. Trepe's idea. It worked, too."

"Then should you see Ms. Trepe again, give her my thanks," Xande said. "It's strange. Now that the hydra and the Wending-Worms are dead, the bent space seems to be returning to normal. The color is coming back. The pictures on the walls. The Gate is still closed, though."

Terra leaned over Squall's shoulder. "Will you be okay inside it?"

"Once the Dark King has been defeated, I'll find a way out."

"Or we'll find a way in!"

"In the meantime, I've got my library, which is more than I had during my self-imprisonment in the Crystal Tower. Don't worry about me. The important thing now is that you cut down that Banecore Tree."

Squall returned the flower to his jacket pocket. Celes drew Silverdream. Terra, having lost her sword, summoned a small flame.

With no further words, the three of them passed through the Witherbane-ridden Gate.


	9. Chapter 6: A Teeming, Empty Village

Chapter Six: A Teeming, Empty Village

They ran, climbed. Squall's gunblade chopped. Flame erupted from Terra's fingers. Silverdream, in Celes's hands, was a light in the darkness. Yet there was so much darkness around them; the Witherbane ruled this Gate, thrashing, enraged, knotting into traps and barriers, trying like weeds to smother them. Their only hope was to keep moving so the blight couldn't pin them down, and though none would have said it- none wanted to discourage the others- all three knew they couldn't keep moving forever.

The Gate opened into another forest, this one teeming with sloughing, bleeding, bane-scorched trees. How, Celes wondered, could they hope to find the single tree that was the source of all this rot? The foliage was dense as it was, and with the Witherbane muddying things further, their search was blind one.

Celes could see a slight change occurring. The trees became larger, rounder; the bark, though still riddled with disease, smoother. The brush gathered together in the cultivated rows of a garden. The mushrooms, though shriveled, grew larger and flatter.

Celes slowed, then stopped when she came to a clearing. Squall and Terra burst through the trees after her.

The Witherbane hadn't followed.

The clearing was circular, sketched out in the first green plants they'd seen since the Whisperweed: large glowing bulbs that grew like balloons at the end of willowy stalks. Each one was as tall as Celes. A few were taller. Their leaves grew in wiry spirals. These glowing plants must have been keeping the Witherbane away. Away from what, though?

A town!

It took Celes a few looks before she was able to spot the doors and windows in the trees; they looked just like knots. In fact, all the signs of life here, from the dirt paths to the flower-petal mill to the flute-like water pumps, seemed to spring directly from the ground. A town built entirely by geomancy?

"Foresta!" Celes said, suddenly understanding where she was.

As soon as she'd spoken, doors began to creak. Lights flickered to life in windows. Shadows were cast by the lanterns. Was it possible; was the Gate-generated echo such a perfect replica it even included the townspeople? Was this another ambush by the forces of Chaos?

"Oh!" Terra pointed, clapping and beaming. "They're moogles!"

It was true. The shadows were cast by their tiny furry bodies and fluttering wings. Pink tufted pom-poms emerged from the doors, followed by cat-eared, pink-nosed heads. Moogles looked out of the windows, sprung out of the garden, clustered around the newcomers curiously.

Celes sheathed Silverdream, and Squall lowered his gunblade.

At the center of the town was a stump, remnants of a tree that must have been as big as a Wending-Worm. It had been hollowed out like a bowl and pitched with something sticky and brown. Now, a bonfire burned inside it. Celes, Terra, and Squall were seated around it by the moogles. One of them, who Celes presumed was the leader, spoke.

"I can't believe you survived the woods the way they've been lately, kupo! You must be strong!"

The sky was a twilight mix of red and wine, darkened by the smoke of the bonfire. Now that their guests were placed, the moogles themselves looked for seats. Some floated in circles above the benches. Others plopped into empty seats and stuck out their tiny paws. Three vied for space on the delighted Terra's lap. Only the leader remained standing.

When the movement died down, he cleared his throat.

"I am Kunan," He began. "When this world was barely formed and the first cycle of Cosmos and Chaos's war not yet over, I and my fellows discovered this Gate. Weary of the conflicts of the Lufane, we sought refuge inside. For many cycles after, it was peaceful. The battles that raged above the waters never reached us."

"Never reached us," the other moogles chimed in.

"Then," Kunan said, "Only this cycle, the wicked plant appeared in the heart of the forest. We noticed the trees around it withering, as if it drew the life straight from them. We couldn't pull it up. We couldn't cut it down. It grew rapidly, very rapidly, from a sapling, it became a tree in a matter of months."

"In a matter of months," echoed the chorus.

His tiny paw cast a long shadow as he reached for the stars.

"At first, it did not seem to affect much. The roots grew above ground in places, and moved. The plants they touched died, and were grafted into them. But it was such a small area, we never thought of fleeing. We watched it with caution and went about our business." He clapped. "Then, like that, it attacked. Many were lost; strangled by the Witherbane. It choked our crops, poisoned our water. It was only because of these Geomancer's Lanterns that we were able to chase it out of the village, and we've been surviving here ever since." Kunan pointed to one of the glowing balloon plants.

There was a collective sniffle.

"A few brave moogles thought that, if the lanterns worked here, perhaps they would drive the roots back even further. They set off for the tree... but they never made it. For it was then, when we carried that light into the poisoned woods, the guardian rose out of the ground. Down its throat our warriors went!"

The moogles on Terra's lap became so upset, she had to scratch their ears to calm them.

Celes stood, displaying Silverdream in the firelight. "We've come to destroy the guardian and cut down the Banecore Tree. Do you mean you can tell us where it is?"

"Too far," Kunan said. "Too far from the village, and to powerful, too bloated."

"We don't care!" Terra said. "We've got to try!"

"That's what the others said, too," Kunan sadly shook his head, his pom-pom swaying. "Down its throat they went."

"Down its throat," repeated the moogles.

Squall said, "Describe this guardian for us. What will we be facing out there?"

All at once, the moogles' concise speech became nonsense. Each one tried to give a description in varying degrees of hysterics; some contradicted each other.

"It's bigger than the houses!"

"Bigger than the highest treetops!"

"Nothing but bone!"

"No, I saw some meat!"

"It breathes pure venom!"

"Kills the ground it walks on!"

"QUIET!" Kunan yelled. When they had complied, he said, "Flamerus Rex is a skeleton. It's hard to tell what kind of creature the skeleton is from. It could be from more than one thing, all put together wrong. But they're right. Sometimes it's got meat on its bones. Warriors who challenge it, kupo, they go down its throat... and their meat stretches over its bones. That's what'll attack you if you try to carry light-like things to the Banecore Tree."

"Then that's what we'll have to defeat," Celes said. "Tell us how to find it."

Kunan's ears drooped. He was certain, she could tell, they were lost. "See that southern path? The wicked plant is that way. Follow it carrying your axe of light, and Flamerus Rex will find you."

There was nothing more to say. Celes stood, and Squall and Terra were right behind her.

When they came to the southern border of the town, marked by two tree-houses and clusters of Geomancer's Lanterns, Squall plucked one of the luminescent bulbs. "Were these just growing here? How did you figure out the Witherbane didn't like them?"

Kunan was about to tell them when the door opened.

An elf emerged. Celes gasped. Kaeli! It was Kaeli! How had she escaped the Dragon Isles? She was about to run to her when the elf stepped into the light, revealing translucent skin a uniform shade of burgundy and blank eyes. Celes should have known. It wasn't Kaeli; it was a Manikin that had taken her form.

"They grew them for us," Kunan said.

"Of course," Squall said. "If these Manikins were sealed in this Gate before the first cycle was over, they wouldn't have been reprogrammed into attack drones by Chaos."

The Kaeli-Manikin passed without even looking at them, trudging into the village. The door of the second house opened, and another Manikin trailed.

It was a shaggy-haired, burgundy satyr with a wrinkled face and fur robe. It also ignored them, but Celes recognized its features. It was the Elder Geomancer, Durante.

Did that mean he, too, was stranded somewhere on this world?

* * *

><p>Celes remembered her entry into Cornelia, when she'd been so hopeless she'd been grateful for the suggestion to visit the Necromancer, simply because it was a direction. How few days had elapsed! She couldn't have imagined this then, that she'd be facing the Banecore Tree.<p>

It turned out, she'd never had to worry about identifying it. She knew it the second she saw it. The plants around it had died, for one thing; not even infected husks remained, only bark and red-tinged swamp muck. Even if it had been crowded, though, it would have been obvious. The Banecore Tree was double the size of the largest treehouse, and looked less like wood than massed globs of metal, an unhealthy gray streaked with the veins and peeling bark she'd come to associate with the blight. Like some creature of the deep, plucked from its home and planted on dry land, it waved its tendrils at the three of them as they neared it.

The moogles were right.

The second they were in sight of the Banecore Tree, the ground erupted. One hand shot from the dirt first, riddled with worms, and clenched the earth. It dragged its head (loosely termed) above next, and Celes couldn't imagine this thing had ever been alive, couldn't see where any skin or organs would have fit amidst the bone. Bloody, meaty shoulders followed. Kunan hadn't told her how large it would be. It towered as high as the Banecore Tree itself.

She had already drawn Silverdream. That was good, because the thing opened its mouth, and though she couldn't describe what poured forth as _words_, it dug at her ears so badly she could barely move.

The warmth of the axe gave her courage. She stepped forward to meet the creature, and her motion broke its hold over Squall and Terra.

Dirt and blighted plants few as its claws dug a trench in the earth, reaching for Celes but flinching from the light of Silverdream. Celes brought the axe down, but the head was already gone, and now the giant jaws were closing around her, a mouth that dripped the same venom as the Witherbane. They opened again as Squall jammed the Geomancer's Lantern into one of the eye-sockets; Celes sliced across its nose as a parting gift. Flamerus Rex caught her across the chest. She'd barely registered the blood when Terra closed the wound with a spell.

Unused to its intended prey standing longer than it took to corner and swallow, Flamerus Rex was enraged. It summoned the Witherbane, blocking them off from every path of retreat. Terra spread her hands and engulfed the vines in a ball of cosmic plasma. They continued to thrash.

It opened its mouth again, and this time, instead of that vile hissing, billows of smog poured. Celes's eyes stung.

The next thing she knew, Flamerus Rex had reached down and plucked her from the ground.

_Down its throat_, she heard the moogles chant in her head.

_Not me, you don't!_ Celes freed her arm and brandished Silverdream. It struggled to block its eye-sockets and dropped her. She fell hard against solid wood and gasped, her chest tightening like iron had been fastened around it. She thrashed, got a mouthful of infected bark, and spit. What an awful taste! What was this?

The Banecore Tree?

* * *

><p>When Flamerus Rex dropped Celes, Squall slashed it with his gunblade. He'd intended to distract it, and it worked. The bad news was, before he could move, one of its fetid claws pinned him to the ground. His fighting arm was trapped between its fingers; Witherbane lashed around his wrist, pulled his gunblade away from him.<p>

The giant mouth opened, wisps of poisoned smoke curling from its corners as it closed around him. The lantern and its light was so far away. He struggled against the vines. His fingers brushed the end of the gunblade before it was dragged even further from his hand. Flamerus Rex's jaws began to close.

A ball of blue light, like a will-o-wisp, collided with the skull-face and exploded. Another followed, then another, in rapid succession. Flamerus Rex's jaws opened again as it found the ground suddenly quaking beneath it. The vines holding Squall in place burst into flame.

Terra!

Hair flying from the backdraft of her own spells, Terra stood between him and the giant corpse.

Squall didn't waste time in retrieving his weapon and returning to his feet.

* * *

><p>Celes saw Squall and Terra trying to battle past the giant skeleton, trying to reach where she'd fallen. She saw, in her mind, Kunan in front of his bonfire. The tree was planted, then this thing began to attack... the Witherbane, all of it, was connected to this...<p>

_What did I come here to do?_

She came here to cut down the Banecore Tree!

Would she have time? It was such a giant tree, and the creature was turning, noticing where she was, how she raised the axe. It left Squall and Terra and ran for her, gaining every second, stretching its meat-bloodied fingers. How could she hope to cut down the Banecore Tree?

In spite of it all, she chopped. Wood flew. Metallic blood oozed. She chopped again. Light began to gleam in the cracks she left in the Banecore Tree's trunk. She chopped again and then the dead fingers closed around her.

The light beneath the cracked bark of the Banecore Tree strengthened. Flamerus Rex lifted Celes into the air, to throw her or eat her. But the light was spreading like the blight itself had, stretching through the bark and bleeding mercury. The toxic fog began to dissipate. The gaping maw opened, but what came out was not more toxin, not more of that horrid language, but a scream.

The Banecore Tree exploded.

The screaming grew as the hand holding Celes liquefied. The fog cleared. Green filtered back into the leaves above. Like an ink drawing being painted, the Witherbane drained and the color returned. Fireflies floated. Stars shown through the branches. Flamerus Rex, with one final scream, melted into the ground.

Terra and Squall were at Celes's side, then they were helping her to her feet. She needed their support; it felt like she had been drained by that thing's touch.

There was silence. The three of them looked at each other in the midst of the calm, vibrant twilight forest as peaceful sounds returned; an owl hooted. Insects chirped. Then, to Celes's amazement, Squall spoke first.

"The Witherbane is gone."

Terra clasped her hands. "We did it!"

Celes heard their words, but in her exhaustion, she didn't understand them. She didn't understand what she'd just done until she saw the Witherbane dissolving at her feet, saw a tree snake pass over a powerless shell of blighted root. Was this real?

_Yes. It was real._

Celes laughed. "The blight is cured!"

For a few moments, they enjoyed the normalcy of the forest. _It's gone, Kaeli_, Celes though, _hang on!_

"Let's get back to the village," Celes said. "Though I doubt we'll need to tell them what's happened. All they have to do is look at the forest to see we've won."

* * *

><p>Foresta was still when they returned. The lanterns glowed with soft light. Cicadas chirped. A frog bounded past Celes's feet and splashed into a nearby pond. So soon, and the pall of death was already lifted.<p>

So why was the village still so quiet?

There was no magical pulse. No malevolent whispers. There was just a sense of foreboding; three warriors experienced enough to know something was not as it ought to be.

"Kunan?" Celes asked.

Grass crunched. Someone was coming. Several someones. They weren't making much of an effort to be quiet. Was that a good sign?

A burgundy crystal-elf staggered towards them.

"It's one of those Manikins," Celes said. She started for it. Manikins could speak a little; maybe this one would know where the moogles had gone.

Squall stopped her.

"Celes," He said.

A satyr stumbled into view behind the elf. He was followed by two more elves. How many Manikins were there, and why hadn't they shown themselves before?

Celes got her answer: a familiar shrieking laugh.

"Here come the triumphant heroes! It's not a pretty sight. The three of you look like you've been swimming in the dumpwater behind Zozo's butcher shop."

Kefka! Celes searched the thronging crowds of Manikins, marching blank-faced elves and satyrs, trying to spot him. He wasn't among them, so she looked up. There, on the roof of a particularly imposing treehouse, Kefka sat kicking his heels against the upper window and watching the massing crowds with glee.

"I'm betting you smell like it, too," Kefka said, "So it's a good thing I don't have to get close enough to find out. What's say we see how many waves it takes to put you on ice?"

Terra yelled, "What have you done with the moogles?"

"'What have you done with the moogles?' She asks! I think you'd better worry about what the Manikins are going to do to you!"

Squall and Celes barely had time to go for their weapons, and then the hoards were upon them.

For a few cruel minutes, Celes thought they might have a chance. The first few Manikins to attack went down easily beneath Silverdream's edge; Squall's gunblade cut just as many down. Spears of ice from Terra's hands skewered a whole line of them. Then came more powerful reinforcements, and the blades were no longer enough; Celes alternated between her axe and her ice shards, Terra summoned wind and flame, Squall fired the gunblade with fury. Still more swarmed them, and soon Celes was hurling ice and snow as quickly as she could summon it just to keep them off her. She couldn't even see Squall or Terra anymore.

The Manikins overwhelmed them.

Two tried to drag Celes, and when they found their strength wasn't enough, summoned more. She was pulled, struggling, to the treehouse where Kefka sat. He leapt from the roof and landed in front of her.

The treehouse door opened, and Gilgamesh stepped out.

He passed Kefka, stood before Celes. She looked up. With an apologetic expression, Gilgamesh pried Silverdream from her hands. She clung to the axe as long as she could.

"Don't make this any harder than it has to be," He said.

In response, Celes head-butted him with enough force to knock him backwards.

Silverdream was still in his hands when he recovered, though, rubbing his head. "How many arrows can one woman fire into my heart? It's running out of space!"

Kefka was less impressed. He walked back and forth between Celes, and then Squall, who she noticed had now been restrained at her side. He paced a few circles.

"I know you're dumb magic-machine hybrids and all, but you can count, right? I distinctly recall _three _triumphant heroes strolling into the village. It seems you've only managed to bring me two."

"The other got away," The addressed Manikin, a satyr, said.

"Terra got away." Kefka exhaled slowly. "Story of my life. Oh, well, toss the two you _didn't _manage to lose into the jail. Put 'em in the drunk tank."

Squall lifted his head. "Moogles have a drunk tank? That's the most disturbing thing I've ever heard."

Celes was marched by hoards of Manikins towards the door. She looked behind her, at the newly-pristine forest, and the last of her hope died.

She just barely caught a glimpse of Terra, a pale, black-nailed hand clasped over her mouth.

Celes instinctively tried to run to her, and was rewarded with a jerk from the nearest Manikin. It was too late. Terra hadn't "gotten away" at all. She was taken prisoner by a different enemy.

* * *

><p>Terra didn't know how she'd been pushed through the mob, or how she'd ended up back in the dark forest, outside the lantern light. Perhaps one of her spells had forced her this way. She only knew she had to get back into that fight as quickly as possible. She was so intent on that, she didn't notice she wasn't alone until chilled hands wrapped around her.<p>

"I'd promise no harm would come to you if you didn't struggle," Hein said, "But that would be a lie."

* * *

><p>"Boss!" Gilgamesh burst into the upper level of the treehouse, brandishing Silverdream. "Boss, I've got it! I brought you the..."<p>

His voice trailed away.

Exdeath had been propped in a pair of chairs by three Manikins. Gilgamesh felt a rush of horror. Dead? He sure looked it. The rot of the Witherbane no longer forked through his arm and chest, but there was greenish scarring where it had been. Yet the Moore Tree didn't look any better for its absence. Gilgamesh did the only thing he could think to do: he elbowed through the Manikins and slapped him.

Reflexively, Exdeath smacked him back.

Well, that was good news. Exdeath wasn't dead. He wasn't responsive, either, though. Experimentally, Gilgamesh yanked the flowers out of a nearby vase, then tossed the water into Exdeath's face. Nothing. He dropped the vase on him, and that didn't wake him up either, but there was something cathartic about it.

Still...

Gilgamesh didn't know what to do. He had the axe. It didn't look like Exdeath was perishing without it. Should he just leave it here? That didn't seem like a smart thing to do with such a unique weapon, especially with that other warrior still on the loose. He didn't want to wait around until Exdeath woke, either. It would be boring.

Also, if he were being honest with himself, he didn't feel comfortable leaving prisoners alone with Kefka. Not since he'd caught him pitching bouncy fireballs at the moogles that one time.

Grumbling to himself, Gilgamesh left the room and trudged back downstairs. He guessed he'd have to hang onto Silverdream for the time being.

And he just knew, whenever Exdeath woke up, he'd think he'd been trying to steal it.

* * *

><p>Celes glowered at the bars, and the clown on the other side of them. She sat at the back of the cell. Squall sat at the corner, also watching, though his eyes lingered not on Kefka, but his gunblade, sitting in a little wood-and-glass cabinet as if it were a knick-knack. In the cells on either side of them, the village moogles floated. Some were asleep and snoring loudly. Outside, the cell was guarded by Manikins.<p>

Kefka must have gotten bored. He summoned a fireball and was about to throw it into a cluster of whispering moogles when Gilgamesh appeared and grabbed his wrist. He burned his fingers instead.

"Knock it off," Gilgamesh said.

"That's what I was trying to do, before you stopped me. A guy can't set anything on fire with him around." Kefka skipped to the bars and leaned on them. "You're just lucky I can't get a fireball through your bars. They've been fixed up special to resist magic, just in case you had any ideas about blasting your way out. It's a lot like the cell you landed me in back at Gestahl's stupid feast. Though, if we're keeping track, I'm still winning. This is the _third _time I've put you behind bars."

"If we're keeping track," Celes said, "You're a prisoner of the Empire every miserable day of your life. At least Terra and I managed to keep some modicum of dignity."

Kefka looked like he was going to try to get a fireball through the reflective bars anyway, but Gilgamesh stopped him again. Celes didn't care. She returned to sitting.

"Squall, the Dark King's forces have Terra," She said. "I saw them take her in the fight."

"So that's how they plan to replace Xande," was all Squall said.

"How can you be so cold about it? You heard what she said! They needed Xande because the Dark King has to have an Esper as his avatar. Terra's an Esper, too! They'll transfer him by sacrificing her instead!"

Squall looked away from the gunblade long enough to fix Celes with a hard stare. "And if we storm around the cell in a frenzy, will it unlock the doors?"

Celes grew quiet. He was right. their only hope of rescuing Terra- _and Kaeli_- was getting out of this cell. She didn't see how that was going to happen, though, when they couldn't even break the bars. From her purse, she removed the spotted bandanna. At least this hadn't been confiscated by the Manikins.

Gilgamesh glanced into the cell, looking uncomfortable. "This sounds serious."

"Which one of you ordered the road apple pie?" Kefka asked.

Celes didn't feel like responding to one of his stupid jokes. She concentrated on the bandanna, ignoring him.

"Because this is the biggest pile of chocobo crap I've ever heard!" Kefka punched the wall. "'Oh, no, the bad guys have Terra! She's soooooo doomed without us!' I thought you Cosmos twits believed in all that trust and teamwork garbage! Don't you have any faith in her at all? You don't need to worry about Terra; you need to worry about the scrubs that took her!"

_...did I miss something?_

Kefka wrapped his hands around the bars. "I bet she never told you, so I will. Terra wasn't summoned here by Cosmos. She's a soldier of Chaos. She had one of her little Branford Fits after she bloodied some sky pirate's nose a little too badly, and Cosmos agreed to hide her. Get her back on the battlefield, though, and out comes the Imperial Witch. Fire. Fangs. Concentrated bloodlust. They think they've kidnapped a princess. Ha! She'll make 'em call her queen!"

"And then she'll snap, right?" Squall asked. His low, casual voice didn't change. He said this as easily as he'd announced Terra's impending sacrifice. "Throw her in enough fights, and her powers will burn through that empathy, those convictions, all that pesky self-control that's always getting in your way, and then she'll be just like you."

"She_ is _just like me!" Kefka said.

Squall shrugged. "Whatever."

Celes nudged him. "Squall, what are you _doing?_"

"But what if that doesn't happen?" Squall asked, "What if, instead of releasing her power, the pressure makes her repress it even more? Do you know what that means? She won't be coming back next cycle. Or ever. She'll be gone."

"Big deal. That almost happened when she sided with Cosmos. I don't care if she dies pretty."

Squall walked right up to the bars, and instantly, his calm demeanor dropped. "Pretty? She's not going to die. That _thing _Astos and Hein serve is going to steal her body! It's going to assimilate her mind, and she'll be trapped with it forever, able to see and hear everything it's making her do! What do you think that'll do to her? Do you think it sounds _pretty_?"

_Why does Squall think he'll care?_ Celes thought. _Kefka doesn't care about anybody but himself. Even when he thought he was in love with me, it was all about him_, _about Emperor Gestahl's glorious vision of Kefka and I ruling the world as his successors. _But Squall's bewildering tirade was, indeed, having some kind of effect. For the first time since they'd entered the cell, Kefka wasn't smiling.

"You can't scare me. I don't even think you're telling the truth."

"I saw Hein with my own eyes!" Celes said.

"_Hein_ has her?" Kefka turned on them.

Squall kept talking. "We were eavesdropping when they planned this. They're using the Citadel of Trials. That must be where Hein's taken Terra. There's a teleport stone just outside of the ruins of Gaia. If we leave now, we might be able to overtake them."

"He's no match for her."

With that, Kefka grabbed the keys from Gilgamesh, unlocked the cell, and tossed them back to the surprised swordsman.

"And I'll prove it."

Squall stared him down for a moment, then tore his gunblade from the cabinet. "Celes?"

Celes hadn't left the cell.

"If you like it in there so much, we can leave you. Or are you scared?"

"Of you?" Celes asked, chuckling. "Any time it's come down to a fight between us, you've lost. Even in training." She folded the bandanna and marched past him with a stony face, pausing only to say, "You'd best remember that should you be tempted to double-cross us... _or_ lay a finger on Terra."

"Ooh, what's this? Jealousy? You had your shot."

"Indeed I did, and you've still got the scar."

"Bratty egomaniac! You never change!" Kefka blocked her progress with one arm. _Am I going to have to put him down already? _She wondered. "There's something I gotta tell you about Hein. A few days ago, I was interrogating him..."

Celes snorted. "A sanitized version of events, I'm sure."

"...and there's something wrong with his brain."

Squall and Gilgamesh stopped what they were doing to stare. Even Kunan poked his head out of his now-open cell with as incredulous an expression as was possible on a moogle's face.

"Not in a good way. Hein made a deal with some kind of entity, this Dark King of yours from the sound of it. It offered him the usual: a chunk of the planet to rule, eternal night, Terra and Ultimecia mud-wrestling over who gets to bring him dinner. Thing is, in exchange, it made him... how do I put this?... take on a roommate in his own body. When I tried to read its mind, I got a terrible zap. My annoying it messed Hein up pretty bad, too. So watch out for it. I don't know how much control he has over it, or how powerful it is."

Squall rested his gunblade on his shoulder, and that brought Celes's attention to another problem.

"I'm going to need a weapon, too," she said.

With that, she snatched Silverdream back from Gilgamesh before he could protest.

He thought about fighting over the axe, then airily said, "You can use it for the time being, since I refuse to lend you anything of _mine_."

* * *

><p>On the way out of the Gate, while Kefka and Gilgamesh lingered ahead, Celes dropped back to talk to Squall. He didn't feel like talking, and to his relief, she seemed to sense that. She got right to the point.<p>

"Where did _that _come from?"

Squall clenched his hand around the plain ring in his pocket. His ring, decorated with a lion's head, was on another's finger. As they walked, somewhere in the land of Discord, the sorceress Ultimecia was undoubtedly plotting (Kefka just had to say that name!). The sorceress who had stolen her body, and the body of his adoptive mother, and put them both through the sort of hell he'd described. He couldn't remember names, but he could remember their pleas for death.

He shrugged. "Who cares? It worked, didn't it?"


	10. Chapter 7: Citadel of Trials

Chapter Seven: The Citadel of Trials

Terra gazed beyond the smooth crystal walls of her prison to the uppermost floor of the Citadel of Trials. It was difficult to concentrate on it. All around her, she felt electricity: the energy stolen by the Witherbane, redirected into the orb. It put her in a state close to drunkenness, which was how Hein and his undead had been able to so successfully restrain her. She could only barely recall being carried up a dismal, narrow staircase, then when it crumbled into oblivion, onto a rumbling elevator she was certain would fall. Instead, it brought her here.

Before her spread what once had been a verdant garden. Now the vines that wrapped around its marble columns and spires were crunchy and brown, the pools dry. Above her was open sky, heavy with ominous clouds, Below her- for her crystal orb sat on a dais- was a battered old treasure chest. Once, she knew, heroes flocked to the Citadel for the chance to find and open that old thing. Now it was closed, and Hein sat atop it. Had it always been so weathered? How must it have felt when one of those knights finally held it in their hands?

"It must have been so happy here," Terra said.

Hein chuckled. "Not for everybody. This was a test, and like all tests, some failed it. Astos, for instance. This is where it happened; where Astos, unable to find this very garden and open this very chest, lost the crown of Elfheim to his brother. His whole life he'd been trained to take the throne! The despair must have been unbearable. But, see, it's all worked out, hasn't it? His brother died in the wars, and the kingdom is his, no rivals, no questions."

"No dreams," Terra said.

"Come again, dearest?"

Terra could see her own reflection curving with the surface of the prison. "This isn't real. The things the Dark King gives you aren't real. He's using you, and when he's done, he'll throw you away. I've seen it happen with so many Espers... so many humans."

He laughed. "You're so beautifully naïve! I could have cured you of that, but I suppose I'll have to make do with only _one_ of Chaos's sorceresses. I wonder if Xande, when he ran, had any idea what you'd be facing in his stead. Perhaps when the Dark King tears through Matoya's Cave wearing your necrotic remains, he can enlighten him."

Hein stood and slowly climbed the stairs. He leaned against the crystal globe.

"No," He said, "There'll be no knives, no bleeding. But the pain of having your very essence torn apart and integrated into a being of such raw power? I can only imagine the agony. Can you? Very soon, you won't have to."

"Please, listen to me, Hein!" Terra said. "I spoke with your father, your _real _father. Yes, he's alive. Don't look so afraid. He doesn't hate you for what you did. He's hurt, and he's worried. All you have to do is stop this and go back to him."

"There's nothing there for me, especially not family."

"What are you saying? I'd give anything to have that chance! Even if the Dark King were good on his promises, none of them would be worth losing it. _My _father..."

Hein waved his hand in the air. "Ah, yes, _your _father. Didn't he do the Esper equivalent of dying in your arms, once liberated from the Magitek Factory? Tell me, did he ever know your dirty little secret? Those feelings you've been harboring all these years for the man who drained him to the point of death?"

Terra punched the crystal. The electricity reverberated around the prison. Cool as he'd been trying to play, Hein flinched at the sheer force. He backed down a stair. When the globe remained intact, he laughed again. There was no disguising the relief in his voice.

"At least I know you're fond of leeches," He taunted, returning to the chest.

Terra's head was lowered. She didn't lift her eyes. Her fist still lay against the crystal. "You're only doing this because you know what I'm saying is true."

Hein didn't respond.

The seconds stretched, so Terra could no longer tell how long she'd been in the globe. She only knew her anger hadn't cooled. The light began to fade, and it was so gradual, she didn't notice at first. When the garden became so dim she had to squint to make out its details, Terra looked at the sky.

Lightning-split stormheads massed around the tower. They crowded around the Citadel.

With the clouds came a presence, an oppressive, encompassing force that brought all of Terra's worst memories to the front of her mind. She began to get a feeling- distant at first, but growing stronger by the moment- that she was no longer alone in her prison. She flattened against the wall, making herself as small as she could.

Soon, the horrible thoughts were pushed aside, replaced with pure animal instinct, leaving only one refrain in her head.

_I have to get out of here!_

* * *

><p>The undead stalked, in their unsteady gait, through the dried brambles and banestruck orchards that had once been the Citadel grounds. The moans of zombies and vampire rang through the cracked columns and arches that stretched out where a path had once been; now, it was sunken in mud and overgrown with weeds. There was no marching. No order, as there might have been in a more traditional guard. They simply roamed, a perfect compliment to the decaying Citadel of Trials.<p>

Once, the Citadel had been as stately and inviting as it was imposing. A tower of sandy, rounded brick, it had crawled skyward with a wide set of winding stairs, giving the building the appearance of an up-ended telescope. What the wars hadn't destroyed, time had attacked, and now that staircase was all but stripped away. Only a few fragments poked out like the spokes of a wheel.

The Dark King's minions, when they'd moved in, had to replace them.

Where there had once been stone, there were tarnished chains as thick around as a human being. They were lashed around pulleys, then attached to a platform of iron, crossed with rusty bars that gave it the look of a cage for some powerful feral animal.

Those chains swung and creaked. The undead unleashed their formless cries. Those were, at first, the only noises.

Then came the rumble of footsteps, and Manikins poured into the Citadel grounds. Elves, satyrs, drones, the rotten; they attacked the zombies and vampire with automaton remorselessness, the elves with wood-splitting axes, the satyrs with knives.

Kefka stood atop a column and cackled. "What did you expect me to do? Fight honorably? Go, Manikins! Crush the royal roadkill and his festering dance party!"

Beneath him, Squall, Celes, and Gilgamesh attacked the Citadel from the side. Most of the fighting was elsewhere, but a few skirmishes had strayed into their path, and they cut a wedge through these battling Manikins and zombies as they made for the tower.

Gilgamesh ran beside Celes. "I'd like you to know, I consider it an honor to be fighting at your side!"

"Likewise," Celes said, "But remember, our goal is to get to the elevator and get to the top of the Citadel before the sacrifice is complete!" She split a zombie with her axe and kicked its still-reaching body away. "Don't get sucked into the thick of the battle, or we'll be too late."

The undead, while taken by surprise, were not unprepared. They tore at the Manikins, sending sparks and crystal flying.

The fallen zombies did not stay down.

Celes had expected that, on the undead, they would be abominably difficult to keep down. She had not expected to see a zombie whose head she'd severed creep back to its feet. A pair of hands emerged from its abdomen, and then another creature tore from it: a green-feathered bird-an that lashed at her with its talons. She stabbed it again, attacked it with ice. It fell, finally.

Next to her, Squall said, "I guess that explains why the vampires were able to move around in the daylight."

"That's just snazzy!" Kefka said, kicking the head of a vampire-bird who'd flown up to confront him. "Vampire piñatas, and that ain't candy inside!"

All around the battlefield, the bird-men were tearing free of their hosts to take their place. Other thing emerged from the undead, too: winged woman-faced manticores, three-headed chimeras, robed phantoms. These, while not unstoppable, were proving much more difficult to kill, and Celes saw the Manikin reserves dwindling.

"We've got to make the elevators before they're all gone," Celes said. "Run! Just run!"

They did. Gilgamesh, Squall, and Celes sprinted, fighting when confronted, but concentrating on the rusty cage and its swinging chains. With a leap, Celes reached the platform. Squall and Gilgamesh followed.

"Kefka?" She called.

"Run, she says!" He Tranced, spreading his wings. "I've got a faster way up. You three have fun with that relic. I hope it doesn't fall. No, wait, that's a lie; I hope it does."

He flew for the top of the Citadel, incinerating the bird-men who tried to follow.

Celes slammed the door. Squall activated the elevator. With a jolt, they began to rise.

* * *

><p>The elevator was maddeningly slow, and it was all Celes could do to keep from jumping out and trying to climb the broken stairs. She knew that wouldn't work. The bars were the only thing keeping the birds from swarming them, and some of the stone didn't look like it would support the weight of a feather. That meant she had to wait.<p>

She watched the walls move, wishing they would go faster. Soon, however, she noticed markings in the bricks; peeling paint, lining grooves bored into curves. As individual bricks, they didn't make much sense, but when she stepped back and squinted, she saw they formed a mural.

Carved around the Citadel was a relief of a dragon. Not Bahamut, or the Kaiser Dragon, or any of the creatures she'd heard so much about in her youth. This dragon was wiry, each scale a quilled point; his arms stretched around the top of the building as his tail coiled around the bottom.

Squall saw it, too. "Shinryu."

"I've never seen a dragon like that."

"Shinryu is the dragon that makes the battles here possible," Squall said. "We fight, we die, and he brings us back with no memory of what happened before. Staying alive is the only way to keep your identity, but at some point, everyone loses. If you're here long enough, it'll happen to you, too."

Celes shuddered. Immortality, but at the price of your memories and identity? What was it worth, then? Was there any way off this world, and could she find it before she forgot she had a home to go back to?

The elevator crept upwards, but she never lost sight of Shinryu. His etching encompassed the entire Citadel.

* * *

><p>She was only trapped for a few seconds, but for Terra, it might as well have been forever. The pictures in her head continued, a grotesque album of Kefka, staring sightlessly at the ceiling from his hospital bed; of fifty burning bodies, Terra standing over them with a hypnocrown fixed on her head; her mother laying face-down on damp stone, reaching with a bloodied hand as Emperor Gestahl dragged Terra away from her; her father, floating in a bubbling jar; Terra, attacking Narshe with a suit of Magitek armor, tearing through their forces...<p>

Whirlwinds swept the tower, surrounding Terra's globe.

The globe shattered, and the winds carried Terra from the pedestal, down the stairs, her blood-red eyes fixed on Hein.

"No!" He backed away from the approaching storm. "It's not possible to break free of that! It can hold the most powerful of Espers!"

_I'm half-human_, Terra thought distantly. She unsheathed her claws. Hein tried to throw a lightning bolt, but it couldn't penetrate the shield of wind surrounding her. The shards of her crystal prison were picked up, swirled around her, too.

Hein still tried to attack through the magic field. He couldn't get close. He reached for her, then fell, slammed against the furthest pillar. One arm flopped over the stone. His head lolled on his shoulders. A crystal shard the size of her arm was lodged in his chest.

_I've killed Hein!_ Terra thought.

Sweat broke out on her forehead as her heart pounded. Overhead, she thought she could hear laughter; the laughter of that horrible force, directed at Hein for trusting him, at Terra for killing Hein.

_I... didn't have a choice_, she told herself.

How many times had she old herself that? The allies she'd burned at Kefka's command; hadn't that been her excuse then? The soldiers of Narshe, perished at her hands? Their faces flashed through her head again. What did it matter to _them _that she "didn't have a choice?" What good did it do Hein?

Terra clenched her knees to her chest. She wanted to hide her face, but she couldn't. She couldn't stop looking at Hein's lifeless body.

Which is why she saw it twitch.

She did not for a moment think Hein was alive. At first, she didn't think the twitching meant anything at all. She'd seen it enough. Her horror grew, though, when it didn't stop; when it became conscious movement. He drew his hands under his chest, thrust himself on his knees. Where the crystal had cut his skin, black feathers emerged.

He tore the shard from his chest. Black wings extended from his back. He laughed, in a high-pitched voice nothing like Hein's, in time with the thing in the clouds. He flattened one hand over his torn face, pulled it off, and cast it aside in a fleshy ball.

Terra screamed.

She threw ice at him. Then fire, then lightning. He folded his wings, and the energy was diverted harmlessly into them. A runic warrior? Like Celes? What was Terra facing?

Now he was on his feet, now he was walking to Terra, fluffing his bloody feathers; some kind of monstrous raven.

"Out," He said. "Out finally. One gets so sick of blood with no carrion. I'm wanting my meat now, and here they all come to provide it; all your little friends. Feast on their flesh with me!"

Terra reached for her sword, having forgotten she'd lost it. Instead, she scrounged another piece of crystal. That wouldn't work, either; these things had already cut him in a thousand places. She couldn't use magic, she couldn't use a blade...

She looked into his glassy yellow eyes and screamed again.

Then she buried her face in her arms.

* * *

><p>The winds at the top of the tower were so fierce, Kefka lost control, crashed into the dais, and skidded gracelessly to a stop before a leather treasure chest. Instantly, his head was full of images. Having some experience, he was able to cut them off quickly, but not before he saw the Emperor, smiling benevolently amidst the Warring Triad as he lifted his hands for murder. Even that was enough to make him ill, bring back an inner sting he'd thought he'd banished. He looked at the clouds above, pinwheeling to a point like the funnel of a tornado.<p>

"Fine, you atmospheric toilet. We've established you know how to cheese me off."

He struggled to finish clearing his head.

Terra was close. In fact, she was sitting on the other side of this treasure chest, bent almost double. Around her, all was devastation. Pillars overturned, plants uprooted, glass shattered everywhere, blood pooling. The sight cheered Kefka up, but there was still a problem. Namely, there was a giant humanoid bird stalking towards them.

"Terra, move!" He said. When she didn't, he reached over the chest and pulled her; and just in time. A bolt of lightning scorched the leather where she'd been.

He could tell there was something wrong. She was hard to move. Her limbs were rigid. Had she been injured? He didn't see blood on her.

"Psst!" He said, shaking her. "Terra!"

Did she even know he was there? That thing couldn't have already possessed her!

"Feel like you're losing control?" The bird cawed. "The control you're always scraping for? You'll scrape forever. You'll bow and scrape at the foot of my master."

"Shuddap! I'll bake you in a pie!" Kefka hurled a fireball at him. It bounced around the floor before finding him... then it disappeared into his wings.

_That was underwhelming._

Kefka flattened himself against the chest as another bolt flew over his head. Beside him, Terra still stared.

"What's wrong?" He asked. Then, slowly, it dawned on him. "Now? All the times I've tried to push you over the edge, you pick _now_? Don't you think you could wait twenty minutes, maybe?"

Again, she didn't acknowledge she'd even heard him. Frustrated, he hurled another fireball, a larger one. "Firaga!"

It had the same effect as the first one: none at all. The bird screamed with laughter. Terra was silent.

Kefka shook her again. "What's with the statue face? You're not even doing it right! Ugh, Flare!"

Flame erupted on all sides of the bird, but it continued to casually, mockingly, stalk towards them.

"A little help here? Meltdown!"

"Fool!" Said the bird. "I am one of the Vile Four! I am Pazuzu! Your magic will do nothing... nothing except make me stronger!"

Kefka slumped against the chest, bewildered. He was coming to a stunningt realization, one he never thought he'd make.

This wasn't funny.

_So, okay. Can't use magic on it, can't attack it, can't push it off the tower 'cause it'd just fly back up. It's cheating. That's all there is to it._

Kefka looked over at Terra. Even like this, she was kind of cute. It wasn't what he'd imagined, though. Far from it. She wouldn't be tearing through the world in a destructive whirlwind in _this_ condition. Besides, they'd have a better chance of getting out of this if she would just snap out of it. Hadn't he been somewhere like this once? What had brought him back?

Kefka faded from his Trance and pulled out his doll.

"Hey. Stickbug." He lay it across her lap. "You gave me this. Do you remember it?"

Terra lifted her head. Her eyes were dilated. She saw the doll, though. It was the first thing he was certain she'd seen since he'd crashed here.

"I was sick, remember?"

Terra picked up the doll with both hands, staring.

"And you snuck out of your room, just to bring this to me?"

She looked from the doll to Kefka and finally spoke. "You kept this for all these years?"

"Yeah."

She blinked, and in an exhausted voice, asked, "Why? It's just a stupid toy."

With that, Terra tossed the doll over her shoulder and wrapped her arms around her knees again.

Kefka was shocked. At first, it was because of Terra's reaction; it was the last thing he'd have expected of her. But when he looked over the chest to see if she'd broken the doll, he couldn't believe his eyes. Pazuzu, who had shrugged off Kefka's most powerful spells, was backing away from it like it was a nasty oglop.

"No! Get it away! _Get it away!_" He covered himself with his wings.

As if that weren't bizarre enough, the thing in the clouds stopped laughing, too. It sounded more like it was screaming, or crying. Even better, it was retreating; the funnel cloud drew itself into the sky, which was, itself, clearing and brightening. It was fleeing? From his "stupid toy?"

What was going on?

* * *

><p><em>Just a stupid toy. Just a reminder of a stupid misconception Terra had when she was a child.<em>

Then why was the sight of it breaking Pazuzu's hold over Terra?

She hovered in darkness. It was like a dreamless sleep. She was aware Kefka was beside her, talking to her, and like a person half-woken, she didn't completely know how she was responding. It was too difficult to drown out the other voice in her head; Pazuzu's voice, not his bird's caw, but a an internal hiss, whispering taunts so cruel no spoken language could have done them justice. Another sound appeared, too; the retracting chain of the elevator.

_Her friends. Pazuzu said they were coming for her. Just like in Narshe, when she'd been so lost and terrified she'd unleashed a wave of magic at them before crashing in Zozo. Just when she thought they'd never forgive her, the door had opened and Celes had appeared..._

No, the whisper in her head insisted, turning her mind back to hopelessness. It found a particularly wrenching picture; children surrounding Terra, their faces streaked with tears as they backed away from her glowing form.

_But_, she thought, _that's not how it ended_.

Yes, she had transformed in front of them when Phunbaba, that terror unleashed when the earth was rent, had attacked the orphanage. Yes, they had been frightened at first. Then, one by one, they had come closer. They'd recognized their "mama."

_You can't fool me anymore, Pazuzu! I know what I have to do!_

Terra stood. Her magical energies surged. Pazuzu turned from Kefka, confronting her instead. She unleashed her claws, Trancing not out of rage, but consciously, in perfect control. Pazuzu took to the air; so did Terra.

"You won't stop?" She asked.

Pazuzu declined and dove. She banked, catching him; his talons dug into her, just as her claws dug into him. She released him, reaching for the flames kindled in her heart. When he spread his wings to absorb them, she struck. She felt feathers and blood between her fingers. She slashed him again, and heard bone snapping. The bird's eyes blazed, but it was too late. She raised her hands, knitted together, and brought them down with crushing force. He fell to the ground.

* * *

><p>Kefka leapt out of the way as Pazuzu fell. Was he dead? He nudged the bird with his boot. When that got no reaction, he kicked him. Then, since he was definitely turkey dinner, he kicked him again, just for the giggles. Then he kicked him twice for what he did to Terra, and three times for what he <em>tried<em> to do to Terra. So maybe Kefka once _told_ the Cloud of Darkness Terra would make a good avatar, but that was only because he'd fully intended Terra would wipe up the floor with her and sail over the edge in the battle (and that was exactly how it was going until one of Terra's little brats showed up and calmed her back down). He kicked Pazuzu for that, too. By the time he was done kicking, Pazuzu looked more like a feather duster than something that had been alive a few minutes ago.

The elevator creaked to the top, and opened to reveal Celes, Squall, and Gilgamesh.

"Where's Terra?" Celes asked.

With delicate, almost soundless movement, Terra landed, shedding her Esper form as her feet hit the floor. Kefka scooped up his doll. There was a crack reaching from the top of its forehead to its chin.

Terra looked at Celes. What sort of answer was she going to get? The sort of non-response he'd been getting? Kefka found himself in an odd, uncomfortable sort of anticipation.

"The Dark King fled the Citadel," Terra said, her voice soft and controlled. "I don't know what frightened him away, but we have to find where he went. We have to end this."

Kefka held up the doll. "Terra. Before you gave me this, you put some kind of spell on it. What was it?"

Terra thought. "Cure."

"What kind of cure?"

She furrowed her brow. "Just cure. It was the only healing spell I knew at the time."

"Just cure," Kefka repeated. "Just plain old skinned-knee cure."

As the implications dawned on him, he laughed hysterically.

"What's funny?" Terra asked.

"Guys," He said, waving the doll. "I know its weakness! Ha, ha, ha, and you're never going to believe what it is!"

Terra watched the doll bob. "I broke her? I'm sorry! I'll find you a new one, I promise."

"Ah, it's okay," Kefka said. "She looks pretty with her skull bashed in."

Meanwhile, Gilgamesh had discovered the battered treasure chest. Squall watched as he knelt before it.

"Hey, what do you think is in here?" Gilgamesh asked.

Squall shrugged.

"It's been up here forever. It was a symbol of knighthood at one time. Didn't all knights have to carry swords? I'll bet it's a sword!"

Gilgamesh opened the treasure chest and pulled out its contents.

"...huh?"

The thing in Gilgamesh's hand was not a sword. It was an ugly rag-chocobo made of scraps and corn husks. Its knotted legs dangled as he held it up.

"What kind of symbol of knighthood is this?" Gilgamesh asked, revolted.

Squall walked away, calling back, "At least you didn't get a mummified tail."

* * *

><p>"We should take you back to Cornelia," Celes said.<p>

Terra shook her head as the elevator descended. "There isn't time. Now that the Witherbane is gone, we must launch an assault on the Dragon Isles before they have time to fortify it some other way. It's the only way we'll be able to rescue the Geomancer, Kaeli."

"Terra's right," Squall said.

"See? That monster is no match for us if we're all together!" Terra glanced aside at Kefka. "We will be, won't we?"

"Am I going, you mean? Sure, why not, got nothing better to do. The Dark King has circled the drain enough. Time to flush." Kefka couldn't look at Terra.

"I'll go, too," Gilgamesh said. "I have to be honest with you guys, though. I don't really want to. When the elevator got close to the top, I started to... I..."

"You saw things," Terra said. "Me, too."

Celes shoved the burning town of Maranda out of her mind. "We can't let what it shows us get to us. That's all."

"Exactly," Kefka said.

Gilgamesh squeezed between Squall and Celes. It was a tight fit. The elevator was narrow. "_You_ saw something? What?"

"Kittens. Fluffy, adorable, prancing kittens. My soul is scarred anew from just the memory."

The elevator hadn't picked up any speed since they'd ridden it up the tower, but finally, they reached the bottom. There, the battlefield was still. Manikins lay in pieces, and the birds that weren't with them fled when their master fell.

Someone was approaching, though, and it didn't take them long to see it was Exdeath.

Gilgamesh acted as if he wanted to back away, but squeezed the corn-husk chocobo tucked under his arm and straightened his back. "I'll just tell him what happened. Yup, looks like I'm going back to the Rift."

Before Gilgamesh could tell Exdeath anything, Kefka snapped, "So we didn't leave you a note!"

Exdeath held up his hand. Was he preparing a spell? Celes readied herself to draw the axe.

"I know," Exdeath said. "Since this began, I've had such disturbing dreams, such harrowing visions. Maddened by the Witherbane, I couldn't make sense of them. Once it was cured, though, and I reflected on them, I was able to decipher them. I know what the Dark King came here to retrieve."

He pointed to the Citadel.

Celes, Terra, Squall, and Gilgamesh turned. From this distance, they could see the entire mural easily.

On the sandy face of the Citadel, the dragon Shinryu stretched his arms over the Citadel, over the planet, over the entire cycle and all its players.


	11. Visions of Foresta: Monarch

Visions of Foresta: Monarch

Clouds circled like vultures over Focus Tower as Kaeli pried the door and squeezed inside. Her axe stuck, and she had to remove it, then pull it through after her. She'd been told not to go inside without her mother or Master Durante, but she didn't think she was exactly disobeying. Master Durante was already inside. He'd been inside for two days. Kaeli had to know if he was all right.

She got turned around as she traveled its halls and stairs. She'd been through the main path to Aquaria, marked by its clean corners and worn floors. By comparison, these levels were the domain of spiders. Cobwebs laced everywhere, rebuilt almost as quickly as Master Durante had been able to tear them down. They clung to her as she passed.

Eventually she came to a narrow path pried out of the wall. The tools used to do that (a pickaxe, a crowbar, a hammer), still lay in a pile. Kaeli stepped through and gasped.

Many places flashed before her. An endless desert. A palace of ice. An ominous tower and a world of lava. Finally, she settled on a glass bridge over a chasm that opened to a stormy sky.

Standing at the end of that bridge was Master Durante.

She started for him at a run, but when he turned, fixing her with round eyes, she slowed, then stopped.

"Master?"

"I've found it," He said, "Limitless power. The power that will give me the world!"

Kaeli forced herself one more step. "What are you talking about? You're scaring me!"

"The Dark King! The creature sealed here... we are one now! Through me, he shall conquer... and with him, I shall reign!"

Kaeli wrapped her hands over her mouth. "Why? What about all you taught me?"

"Silly stories for a silly girl! Now, you will know the truth. You will know terror."

Behind the satyr, tendrils of shadow stretched. Kaeli thought at first they were vines, then fingers of a large hand. When she figured out neither of those were right, saw the black, segmented bristles, the jerky legs for what they were, she turned and ran.

She ran.

Durante's laughter followed her through Focus Tower.

Neither her mother nor the village elders believed her. How could they, when the path and the tools that had made it vanished? When the heavy clouds disappeared, and Focus Tower looked no different on the inside or the outside? When, unbeknownst to her, Durante had concocted some story about leaving to study the forests of Windia?

As she sat in her garden one day, suffering under the weight of the Dark King's presence alone, when the door to her house opened and Captain Mac came out.

"Hey, Kaeli! How's my hero doing?"

She couldn't help herself. She told him everything. As she spoke, his face grew graver.

"Hmm. That sounds peculiar, all right!"

'Peculiar?' What kind of word was 'peculiar?' "You don't believe me, either, do you?" Kaeli asked.

Captain Mac swept off his hat and sat on a stump. "I'm going on a long journey in a few days. While I'm out, I'm visiting an old friend in Aquaria. I'll tell him what you told me, and the two of us can crack this puzzle together. Maybe get old Cid involved, if it comes to that. If you say you saw Durante make a deal with some kind of sealed monster, I believe you."

Kaeli looked up into his grizzled old face. Was he making fun of her? "You're coming back?"

He clapped his hand on her shoulder; now a familiar gesture. "Kiddo, I will _always _come back."

Captain Mac was almost out of Foresta when Kaeli noticed something and had to chase him down. "Captain!"

"Hmm?"

"Your hat! You left your hat!"


	12. Chapter 8: Storm the Dragon Isles

Chapter Eight: Storm the Dragon Isles

When Celes left the Dragon Isles, she'd been hunted. She returned a hunter, marching through the dried remnants of the Witherbane with Squall and Terra at either side. The three warriors of Chaos followed. As they'd approached the teleport stone she'd last seen so dark, it sputtered back to life. Now, they stood beneath a golden sky, the sea colored with sunset as it crashed against the sand. The dead Witherbane coiled in wet piles like seaweed.

Where had she left Kaeli? It had to be close. They'd both been able to see this stone when she had been swallowed. The place was such a mess now, she could hardly believe it was the same island. How would they know when they passed it?

Terra inhaled deeply. "It's so quiet here. There's nothing but the waves. We'd hear anyone calling for help."

"Can't see much, either. There's piles of this gunk." Kefka pulled his arm out of a bunch of Witherbane, came up with a handful of rot, and pitched it at Gilgamesh. Fortunately, Gilgamesh bent over to pick something off the ground, and the muck sailed over his head, splattering in the sand.

"I found something! I found..." Gilgamesh held something waxy and pink. "A seashell."

"Do you keep _everything_ you pick up?" Kefka asked as Gilgamesh stuffed th shell in his cloak.

Exdeath pushed through the two of them. "Regardless of whether or not it's someone else's property."

Gilgamesh was offended. "Hey! Who owns a seashell?"

Celes closed her eyes and tuned them out. She tried to remember her exact steps. It was difficult; the trip had been a tangle of flying Witherbane, and she'd spent most of it with her eyes fixed on the teleport stone. The shore had been close on either side, though, she remembered. It must have been one of the narrower parts of the island. Following the map in her mind, eyes half-closed, she paced.

Her boot hit something solid and metal.

Celes knelt and dug with both hands, heedless of the slime that clung to the gauntlets of her armor. She pulled out a long, double-edged sword.

"What did you find?" Squall asked.

"My runic blade," Celes said. "I tried to give it to Kaeli when she gave me Silverdream. I didn't want her to be unarmed. I suppose she either lost it or couldn't get to it."

"At least we know she didn't use it on herself."

"That's no comfort at all." Celes sheathed the runic blade and dashed through the Witherbane. If the sword was here, and she was remembering correctly, that would have put Kaeli...

"Oh, no," Terra said, voicing the alarm in Celes's mind.

The good news, if it could be considered such, was that Celes was now certain Kaeli had been here, and had been removed alive. That was because, beneath the net of Witherbane, there were signs of a struggle: a set of footprints, tossed sand, and most disconcerting of all, hoof marks.

"She's been taken prisoner," Celes said. "But where?"

Squall peered into the distance. "When you had your audience with Cosmos, you mentioned the two of you woke in a cenotaph. Where is it? Since the island was cut off until we destroyed the Banecore Tree, isn't that the only place she could have been taken?"

"You're right," Celes said, and pointed. "It's the far end of the island. Let's go."

Further inland, a different sort of ruin began to emerge from beneath the clumps of vine. Two things made them remarkable: first, the scale. A single brick or fragment of plank was easily the size of a small hut, and the twisted poles of perches were taller than all the warriors combined. Second, they were in total devastation. Cornelia at least had a tower left, and in the other towns, travelers could at least find an intact structure here or there. Not so on these islands. This had been the realm of dragons, and in the last wars, they had fought with enough ferocity to level their domain. There was no conversation among the warriors. Even the darkest heart among them felt a whisper of regret at the loss of those mighty creatures.

Last of all, a stone tower appeared. This was not a dragon construction, but something new, and it had the appearance of a spike that had poked out of the ground. It leaned close to the ocean like a lighthouse. This was the first place Celes had seen upon waking. This was the cenotaph.

_So, whose grave is it going to be?_

The waves grew in size and intensity as they got closer. The wind hadn't picked up, though, and the water in the distance was calm. Was there something beneath the waves, then? They stopped and waited.

The water rose in a serpentine column, bending in the air before landing in front of them. Celes was hit by ice-cold spray as it took shape.

The bottom of the column split into legs. The top sprouted arms. Foamy tendrils formed long hair and robes. Last of all, a face emerged. It was a face Celes recognized.

"Astos."

The water-Astos looked down on her. "We meet again. I expected as much. While I again make you the offer of giving me Silverdream and joining the Dark King, I also expect I'll get the same answer."

Celes climbed on a fallen brick so she could look him in the eye. "Why do you still fight? Your master's plan is in shambles!"

"Why?" Astos asked. "Because you've managed to destroy the Banecore Tree? We can plant another if we need it. Or because you've thwarted our sacrifice for a second time? There's no lack of Espers here. Those tailed performers. The Lunarian brothers, and that swordsman that hovers around the elder one. We have agents following all of them as we speak."

Kefka laughed. "Your agents are dead. If those 'Lunarian brothers and swordsman' haven't given them an epic three-way platinum-headed curbstomping, Kujie-coo's poetry will kill them."

"Such arrogance, when you've accomplished nothing but delays! You're not a threat. You're an annoyance. Why do _you_ still fight? All your efforts are for naught as long as the Dark King is anchored to this world!"

"Then we'll have to find that anchor," Squall drew his gunblade, "And cut it."

Astos grimaced. "You'll never get past me, the last of the Vile Four: The Aquarian Golem!"

Celes brandished Silverdream with one hand and, with the other, warming magic. "You forget, we know your weakness."

"You'll have to find me to use it."

When Celes looked down, the water crashed around her feet. Her block, and similar blocks onto which her companions had been deposited, were the only land in sight. The cenotaph was gone. In its place was a vast sea. Into that, Astos vanished.

Celes grasped at the water with her mind, but as she had feared, it was unnatural and resisted her searching. She had to think of a way to draw him out!

A mottled fountain soared over her head and swept her into the illusionary sea.

Celes drew cure magic, almost reflexively, and the aquatic grip loosened. She began to swim to the surface, but it caught her again. She opened her eyes, and saw dark shapes around her; Squall, Terra, and the warriors of Chaos also pulled under the waves, trailed by bubbles. No! She lashed out with magic again, and Astos again loosened his grip, but still too briefly for her to escape.

Soon, her attempts to land a hit on Astos were preempted my a more immediate problem: she had to breathe.

_I jumped into the ocean once_, Celes remembered. _After Kefka attacked us with the Light of Judgment, and I thought my friends were dead._ She couldn't remember what happened once she hit the water, thought.

The ice returned to Celes's heart with that memory. Without thinking, she discharged it.

Astos lost his hold completely as his hand solidified. Celes pushed away from him. She broke the surface and took a deep breath.

Nearby was another splash. Who? Exdeath, it looked like.

"The ice," She said.

He nodded. "It doesn't harm the golem, but it does solidify him. Slows him down."

"We have to get the others! You take Chaos, I'll get Cosmos."

"So you've chosen your side, have you?"

"You're closer to them. Hurry! Astos is killing them!"

He sank beneath the surface, and Celes dove.

She scrambled to Squall, the closest, and cast ice. When Astos freed him, she swam for Terra. The dark water became a sea of colorful light as they caught on, firing spells in short blasts. Then it began to mist over, like glass on a winter morning.

They stood again on the sand before the cenotaph, and kneeling there was Astos, covered in ice.

He tried to stand, but was unable. Celes approached, axe raised. He looked up. In spite of her previous estimation of his courage, there wasn't a trace of fear in his eyes.

"Celes," Terra whispered.

She lowered Silverdream. "Your majesty, it is only fair that I make you the same offer you made me."

His voice was full of venom. "I won't give up Elfheim! It's rightfully mine! It doesn't belong to my brother or Cosmos! _It's mine!"_

"But you'd share it with the Dark King? Share your own body and mind?"

Terra stepped up. "Celes is right. Hein said you lost your kingdom at the Citadel of Trials. You didn't. You're losing it now."

"Worse," Celes said, "You're giving it up. Is that what a king does? What'll become of your subjects under the hand of the Dark King? Do you think you can protect them from him when you can't even protect yourself?"

Astos's face had gone from defiant fury to confusion. She made sure to keep his eyes locked to hers as she continued.

"Astos, believe us. Even if the Dark King could give you what he's promised, _he wouldn't_."

Astos screamed, and before their eyes, split in half. From his form there emerged a thrashing form like a collection of ice blocks, lunging for Celes.

She swung Silverdream, and then Squall and Terra were at her side, fighting, Gilgamesh joined, and reluctantly, Kefka.

The sky opened behind the golem.

_What?_ Celes looked around.

Exdeath. He reached for the Golem, and where his fingers touched the air, it seemed to peel away from itself, revealing nothingness beyond.

"Drive it into the Void!" He said. "It can rot there!"

Together, they pushed the ice-fiend towards the Void. It struggled, but there was no use. It was swallowed, then the space once again sealed itself, leaving an empty beach.

Astos tried to stand, but was unable. He began to fade. Celes ran to him. "Astos?"

He held up a hand to stop her. "Didn't I tell you? I died ages ago."

With those words, Astos faded.

* * *

><p>Celes had walked this path in a dream. When she descended the final step of the cenotaph, she was in a wide antechamber. There were doors lining the walls, some locked and chained, some cris-crossed with boards, some hanging by their hinges at odd angles. All were impassable. There was, however, an open hall, and that they took.<p>

It didn't take Celes long to feel a creeping sense of deja vu as she left boot prints in an inch-thick layer of grime, pulled sticky cobwebs out of her face and tried to keep them from clinging to her fingers. Spiders casually walked alongside them, fearless. _Have I been here before? Where did it lead?_ When she remembered, she was pierced briefly but fiercely with dread.

She stopped. Squall asked her, "Did you hear something?"

"Draw your weapons and be on your guard. Here, Terra; take my sword. I have Silverdream. It's only a little further now."

The path became so narrow they had to walk single-file. Then, they came to a hole in the wall. This was not hand dug with a pickaxe. It was a triangular fissure, a crack that reached from either corner of the floor to a point at the middle of the ceiling.

Celes stepped through first, but she could feel Terra and Squall right behind her.

The floor was such clear glass, it was disorienting to walk upon; but for a slight glare, it was invisible. It was also glossy, and Celes slipped a few times. Beneath it were raging clouds, and above was the foundation of what must be Focus Tower.

At the end of it was a throne, and on it sat Master Durante.

Celes thought she was ready to face him, but the Master Durante in her dreams had been whole. This one turned to reveal a grinning face well into the later stages of decomposition. On his head, a tarnished crown that looked more like the spiky gear or some big machine than the garb of royalty pinned down the few greasy strands of hair that still clung to his skull. The weight of it compressed the flesh over one empty eye socket. His smile was a skeleton's. On his shoulders was an ermine cape, moth-eaten and stained. His hooves tapped the floor. Celes's stomach lurched. She hoped it didn't show on her face.

What she had intended to do was march right up to him and demand to know what he'd done with Kaeli. She couldn't find her voice. It was as if slimy fingers held her tongue. She tried to summon a cure spell, but the cheerful thoughts and the concentration it required were beyond her reach in this thing's presence.

"Do you find yourself," The dark king said, voice creaking from Durante's throat, "feeling terribly heavy? Has your head emptied of all resolve? Do you know what this sensation is?"

_Has anyone broken free?_ Celes couldn't see, but she knew no one had. Not even Kefka, who she'd at least hoped would be immune from his own sheer debased nature. They were all held in thrall to the Dark King.

"A little girl, crying for her father and teacher, knowing neither cares whether she lives or dies."

He didn't move, yet that horrible face was inches from Celes's. The smell of his rotten flesh was overpowering.

"It's a girl whose beloved grandpa forced her into the Imperial Army's Magitek program, even though he knew what it was doing to the other cadets. It's a child torn from her dying mother's arms and kept in a box to do parlor tricks for the guests."

Then he was gone. "It's a boy standing in the rain, crying for his sister. Oh, where could she be?"

His ermine cape and heavy hooves dragged.

"How how about the forest guardian, fed with all the hatred and wickedness and dark magic nobody else wanted to deal with, and left to struggle with it all alone, until he was consumed? His noble knight, banished from his presence? The Magitek cadet who gave everything, even his soul, to an Emperor who secretly always hated him?"

The Dark King returned to Celes. "That's what you're feeling. Abandonment. Betrayal. But having experienced it, did you fight it? Oh, no! There's not a one of you here who didn't pull the knife out of your back only to plant it in someone else's! With sentience comes faithlessness, and oh, there is no feeling I find so enticing. Never is there a lack of it. It is that which drew me here. That which tethers me. Here I shall remain; the blood of this world is mine! Give me the body of Shinryu!"

_He can't take Shinryu now_, Celes thought. _Not only is this place what Terra called 'bent space,' Durante's body is too rotten, too drained. That's why he needs to be summoned into an Esper before he can make the leap to Shinryu..._

"That kind of power..." Celes said. She couldn't get the rest out.

"I'm sorry," The Dark King taunted. "I didn't catch that."

"That kind of power only breeds conflict."

"Conflict, with who? There'll be no one left to wage war. All life on this world shall be carrion to me. You. Kaeli."

_She must be alive, then_.

"What do you have to live for, with that knowledge? Don't you remember, Celes? The cliff on the island? You stood on it, then you threw yourself into the sea, like all the others who'd succumbed to madness before you. You stand on that cliff again. No one to save you. Fall, Celes."

The cliff. The island where she'd woken. She was there again; she could see the ocean far beneath her feet, feel the loss, the hopelessness so overwhelming. She was falling... waves crashed around her... stones crushed her skin...

And there he was.

A new face in her mind, handsome and fine-featured, wearing a rakish smirk. As the wind ruffled the hair sticking out from beneath his bandanna, he turned. His eyes widened. "Celes?"

Yes, she remembered.

"Locke!"

All those spells Celes couldn't remember sprang to her head. Silverdream glowed more brightly than she'd ever seen. Celes, too, was radiant with its light. Her runic power flooded her, reaching beyond her weapon to her whole body.

The Dark King howled with rage. Around her, the shadows took the shape of monstrous legs, lifted him from the ground. Celes leapt, keeping even with him.

He found his escape cut off. Terra and Kefka, Tranced, wove a net of light above, raining magic upon him from above. He turned to the emptiness beneath, only to find it gone: in its place, Exdeath had spread the Void. He grabbed at Celes with those legs, only to find each one fended away: Squall, his gunblade glowing, matched him blow for blow.

Standing between the Dark King and his only remaining path was Celes.

With her free hand, she reached for him. Her fingers wrapped around his throat. The cruel magic that fueled the Dark King roiled beneath his flesh. Celes felt it and seized it. It flowed through her, and just as when she caught a spell, she directed it as she wished. She turned it from those thoughts of betrayal and focused on that face and name in her mind. Locke. The magic flew from her a healing force. Durante's body came apart in her hands.

"You still haven't won..." he said. "As long as she remains in such pain..."

Durante staggered. Stripped of his magic, Celes thought he was powerless. There was one surprise left up his sleeve, though; literally. A small, poisoned-tipped dagger, racing at her throat...

The six-armed, hulking form of Gilgamesh descended from above, sword in hand, and cleaved him in half. The dagger clattered harmlessly to the floor, then sank into the Void below. His remains dissolved into green light.

"And _that_," Gilgamesh said, "Is how it's supposed to go."

Kefka and Terra landed on either side of him. Squall and Exdeath appeared beside Celes. What an odd team they made. Yet they'd done it. Durante and the force he hosted attacked them no more.

"Let's find Kaeli," Celes said.

* * *

><p>At the very back of the cenotaph, Kaeli lay in a bed of Witherbane. Her arms, folded across her chest, twitched. Her red hair flowed over the vines; he thistles held the cloth of her green dress like nails. Though dead at its extremities, where the blight touched her, it still thrived, feasting off her agony. Even in slumber, pain was written on her face.<p>

Celes approached her and lay Silverdream across her chest.

"Kaeli, I've come back."

The elf did not stir. Celes brushed a red lock from her forehead.

"The Banecore Tree is dead. The Dark King has been defeated. You're safe now. You can come back to us."

She was still breathing, but there was still no sign she could hear a thing.

_I promised I'd come back_, Celes thought, _and I'm here. Kaeli, wake up!_

"Gilgamesh, do you still have that seashell?"

Gilgamesh pulled the conch from his cloak and handed it to Celes. Celes placed it in Kaeli's hands.

"Can you hear the sea?" She whispered.

For a moment, nothing happened, and Celes thought Kaeli might be beyond their help. Then the Witherbane began to die. Slowly, at first, the writhing vines stilled. The thorns released their hold, snapping. This final nest of Witherbane cracked, crumbled to dust, piled on the floor.

Kaeli's breathing became quiet, regular. Her eyes opened. She felt Silverdream beneath her fingers, and the seashell. She sat and fixed her eyes on Celes, then scanned her surroundings in confusion. "I had such terrible dreams. Is the Witherbane gone?"

Celes brushed her hand. "Yes, it's gone. It's all over."

Her eyes were sad. "And Durante?"

As little sympathy as Celes could find for the satyr and his fate, she did not want to upset Kaeli. "He's with his master, wherever it went."

Kaeli brushed her eyes. "There was no avoiding that. I only wish I could have struck the blow myself. Celes, I left you with such a burden, one that wasn't yours to bear. My regret is one of many things the Dark King used to taunt me in my slumber."

"There's nothing to regret," Celes said.

Squall approached. "We can offer you a safe haven in Cornelia, if you'd like it."

Celes put her hand on Squall's shoulder. "This is Squall. I'd never have made it if it weren't for him. And Terra. Even the Warriors of Chaos stood against the Dark King in the end."

Kaeli silently thanked each of them with her smile, but when her eyes fell on Exdeath, her mouth dropped opened.

"Oh!"

Celes watched in shock as Kaeli offered Exdeath the axe.

"It's good as new, see?" She said. "Just as I promised."

Exdeath reached for it. For a moment, he let his hand linger on the hilt. Then, as if it took every bit of will he possessed, he retracted it. "Keep it for now. When you take part in the battles, you'll need it."

"At least let me do something about your wounds." Kaeli stood shakily. She placed her hands on both sides of Exdeath's face. As if they were being erased, the greenish tracks left by the Witherbane disappeared.

Celes helped Kaeli stand when the exertion proved too much.

"Let's get out of here," Celes said.

Kaeli nodded. "Thank you so much for coming back for me."

Without thinking, Celes replied, "I'll always come back for you."

"I think someone else said something very much like that to me, but I can't remember his name."

Celes thought of Locke. "You will."

* * *

><p>The warriors gathered around the teleport stone. The night was cool. The air was fragrant. From the remnants of the Witherbane, small green plants were emerging. There was an absence harder to describe, but felt by all, the lifting of the Dark King's oppressive presence. Finally, he was gone from the world, his connection firmly severed with Kaeli's return to sanity.<p>

"Time to part ways," Squall said. "We're returning to the Land of Harmony."

Gilgamesh confronted Celes. "Wait. Before I leave and before I forget, there's something I have to say."

Celes felt awkward. "Gilgamesh, I... there's someone back in my world, and we..."

He held out his hand. "I understand. I only want you to know that as long as you are in this world, you've got a champion in me."

Like a magician, he snapped his fingers, and a glimmering piece of metal appeared between them.

"My barrette! You found it!" Celes took it and pinned it back into her hair. "Thank you!"

Exdeath huffed. "_Found _it, indeed."

Gilgamesh stomped. "What are you implying? I didn't steal it! I'm not a thief!"

Celes covered her mouth to keep from laughing. "Gilgamesh, the next time someone calls you a thief, tell them you're a treasure hunter."

"Treasure hunter," Gilgamesh repeated. "I like that!"

Gilgamesh touched the teleport stone, and was gone.

As Exdeath reached for it (it was more like he made to slap it with a force he clearly intended for Gilgamesh), Kaeli said, "I didn't expect you to grow up quite like this."

"Given the state you were in when I last saw you, I didn't expect you to grow up at all." Exdeath inclined his head to Kaeli. "The next time we meet, we will be enemies once more, and I have grown in power."

"So have I," She said, and without another word, he vanished.

Kefka stepped up to the stone next. He paused by Terra. "Feeling homesick? Come back to Discord with me. It's only a matter of time, anyway."

Terra wrung her hands, eyes lowered.

Celes imposed herself between the two of them and raised her fist to Kefka's chin. "If you can't find your own way, I've got your directions right here."

"Aw, Celes, you know you're invited, too! You have to admit, it was a cataclysmic blast to have the band back together. The Dark King's gonna be feeling our boot on his keister all the way to the next planet he wants to conquer. You're not telling me you and Terra don't want to have that kind of fun every day!"

"I thought I made it perfectly clear I'd rather be mauled by a Wending-Worm than partake in your idea of fun," Celes said.

Terra narrowed her eyes, standing side-by-side with Celes. "And even the wounds inflicted by this battle will heal. You know I believe that."

"And you know I believe that's when you tear it open again," Kefka said.

"Because it will all be gone soon, anyway, right?" Terra retorted.

"Yes, exactly. I'm happy to know you were listening, because I was beginning to think everything I said in your earshot sort of wandered around your head and floated off into the trees."

"Then why do you have to spend so much time and effort destroying it _now_? What are you afraid will happen if you don't?" Terra crossed her arms.

Kefka started to say something, then stopped and stroked his chin, looking confounded. "You're the most disobedient wretch I have ever had the dishonor of working with. Did I ever tell you that?"

"You made me that way. Did I ever tell you that?"

Kefka reached for the Teleport Stone, but held back yet again. "Terra? When I was on the Floating Continent, and the Emperor abandoned me, and I almost died, I thought nothing could ever be worse than that. But up in that Citadel, when you went bye-bye and I thought you weren't coming back? That was worse. The emperor I lost was a figment of my imagination. You're real. I'm just sayin'. Now go away."

Terra watched, confused. "But you're holding the Teleport Stone."

He looked at the Teleport Stone, then Terra, and shrugged. "Details, details. I'll destroy you all later!"

The Warriors of Chaos were gone.

* * *

><p>This time, when Celes entered Cornelia, it was not barely staving off Witherbane, and it was not quiet. She, Squall, Terra, and Kaeli approached the tower to find a crowd waiting for them.<p>

Celes couldn't believe the variety in Cosmos's ranks. She was greeted right away by a spirited wanderer in blue, who in spite of the fact that she'd never seen him before in her life, slung his arm over her shoulder like they were old friends. Next to him was a young man with a long tail trailing him, playing ball with a laid-back guy in shorts, and behind them, a handsome liegeman fired arrows at a target, not missing a shot. In the distance, a man in tight-fitting black watched; on his back was a sword nearly as large as he was.

A child in heavy armor that looked far too solid to be dress-up pushed his way through them, throwing his arms around Terra's waist. "You should have told me you were leaving! I could have gone with you! Helped you!"

She pulled off his helmet and ruffled his hair. "You did. I know your thoughts reached me, even when I was at the bottom of the ocean."

Meanwhile, Squall approached a fair-haired knight nursing a cut on his forehead. "Cecil, what happened to you?"

The knight daubed the cut. "The strangest thing! I was near the ruins of Lufenia, trying to contact Golbez, when we were attacked out of the blue by elves! We fought them off, and then when one hiding in the trees tried to surprise us with a hail of poisoned darts, that friend of my brother's ran straight up the trunk and cleaved him in two, casual as you please."

Squall shrugged. "Who'd have thought."

The whole entourage were invited to Cosmos's throne room together. They broke away, Celes and Kaeli approaching Cosmos alone.

Cosmos drew the flower, now brilliant red and in full bloom.

"Welcome back," Said the pale warrior. "I see you return victorious."

The liegeman took the rose, relief plain on his face. "It's cured! I can't thank you enough!"

The pale warrior agreed. "It is cured."

The court erupted into cheers once again. Celes looked at the gathered warriors around her and smiled, too. Exdeath was right, after all. She'd chosen her side.

_Until you come for me, Locke, or I return, I'll be here._

* * *

><p>There was one man watching the party from a distance, leaning against a healed tree, arms crossed over his staff. At his side, a broom shifted, also cured of Witherbane.<p>

"Gniogew era?" It asked.

Xande patted it on the handle. "I'm sure they'd be happy to see us, the Onion Knight in particular, but no. I'm not getting drawn into all that cheer. I'm sure the Warrior of Light will tell them Cosmos broke us out. Let's go."

"Erehw?"

"Wherever I please!"

Xande scooped up the broom and vanished into the Lands of Harmony.


	13. Visions of Foresta: Dryad

Visions of Foresta: Dryad

One day, when Kaeli sat weeping in the forest, the monster came.

She had chased it away from travelers a few times, but this was the best look she'd gotten. It was like an artist's mannequin, half-finished, with a face that was a jack-o-lantern's suggestion and spindly, barky limbs. She began to draw her axe, but it felt like her arms had no strength.

"Go ahead and kill me if you want," She said, feeling selfish and apathetic.

It didn't, though. It regarded her with something closer to curiosity. Since it was so close, she noticed something.

The monster was sick with Witherbane. Its left arm was completely black with the blight, and from it, tendrils spread over its whole body.

"Oh!" She sprung from the log. It took a step back, so she stopped. "It's because of that, isn't it? That's why you've been so cranky. If you come here, I think I can heal you."

Though the tree-creature waited, skeptical, eventually it came to her side.

Kaeli stretched her hands over its diseased limbs and concentrated. At first, she did no good. Master Durante had taught her this, and look what he turned out to be. Then she remembered other things he told her. That this creature was unformed, and probably lost. The best thing she could do was show it kindness, the kind Captain Mac showed her.

As she worked, the patches of black shrunk. The disease drained from the monster's body. However, the arm simply wouldn't clear. It was too infected. It was beyond her. Durante could have cured it, if only...

The monster wandered over to the log and picked up Kaeli's axe. It drew the blade across its shoulder.

"You want me to cut off your arm?" Kaeli asked, covering her mouth with both hands.

It regarded her still with curiosity. Like a child. Was that what Durante meant? Was it a child, like her?

She took the iron axe. "You're right. It might be the only way."

With a strike powerful beyond her years, Kaeli cleaved the infection off at the shoulder. The monster staggered a bit under the blow, but quickly regained its balance. Then, to Kaeli's amazement, vines shot from the wound, forming a new green arm and hand. It flexed its damp fingers.

"Wow! No wonder you weren't frightened."

Kaeli picked up the rotten arm. Now that it was severed, she could see a core, tiny as a thread, of live wood in it. "I might be able to salvage this, after all, but it'll take a long time. When it's finished, I'll give it back to you. Promise."

* * *

><p>That would prove harder than Kaeli had thought. She took the arm home, put it in a small pot, and worked on it every day. The Witherbane fought her, but she doubled her efforts. The seashell Captain Mac gave her was always beside her, and when she was exhausted and too cross to summon healing magic, she listened to the sea. That would calm her enough to continue her work.<p>

It took years, but eventually, Kaeli managed to remove every trace of Witherbane from the arm. The healing seemed to have given it a hyper-immunity to the disease; anything it touched was instantly cured.

Furthermore, as it sprouted, it began to look less like an arm. Kaeli coaxed it a little, and perhaps it was because of her influence it grew into the form it did: a silvery double-bladed battle axe.

She named it Silverdream.


End file.
